Liszt Academy Concert Magazine 2015/1 by Zeneakadémia

LISZT ACADEMY CONCERT MAGAZINE JANUARY—JUNE 2015

The Liszt Academy's 140th academic year commences in the autumn of 2015. In preparation for this important anniversary, I feel we have succeeded in compiling a concert programme for the spring season befitting the importance and traditions of the institution. Lovers of early music will find their favourite genre, as will those who favour the string quartet and the wider world of chamber music, Lieder recitals, orchestral concerts, folk music or jazz. We have invited world stars, such as the Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, the Catalan viola de gamba player Jordi Savall, the Austrian quartet leader Thomas Zehetmair, the Czech singer Magdalena Kožená, as well as the American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer. But we have also ensured opportunities for our students and their teachers to regularly display their talents. In our ‘On the Spot’ series, students from the strings faculty, the chamber music workshop, and the woodwind and brass faculty will all be performing. The institution's own symphony orchestra begins operating a new system; the members of the orchestra will be able to work with the evergreen Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi and on a unique Händel project with György Vashegyi in the spring. There will be important contemporary music concerts, in particular a major concert to celebrate the eightieth birthday of composer Professor Sándor Balassa. We will again be organising the international Opera Exam festival, while Concerto Budapest and the UMZE chamber group celebrate Pierre Boulez's ninetieth birthday in the Grand Hall. This is just by way of a taster; we will be continuing in a similar spirit in the autumn season, as our new subscription series encompasses the entire calendar year. There is much discussion these days about the economic and social benefits of university education: to what extent students studying in higher education are able to apply what they have learned in the real world. I believe that the relationship between the concert centre and the university, both housed within the Liszt Academy, can set an example in this respect, because the two realms exist symbiotically – not only in terms of structure but also in the essence of the activities – in much the same way that medical universities are linked with hospitals. In both cases, it is about healing: in hospitals bodily ailments are treated, while in the magnificent halls of Liszt Academy we refresh souls. dr. Andrea Vigh President of the Liszt Academy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CATCH A FALLING STAR SYSTEM

CONCERTS IN JANUARY

RADICALLY DIFFERENT

CONCERTS IN FEBRUARY

QUARTETS AS SPECTACLE

FOLK MUSIC AND THE STAR INDUSTRY

A MAN OF CONTRASTS

"I LIVE THE PRIVILEGED LIFE OF THE WANDERER" INTERVIEW WITH VILDE FRANG

CONCERTS IN MARCH

ACROBAT

THE JAZZ FACULTY TURNS FIFTY

THEATRICALITY, HUMANITY, HUMILITY INTERVIEW WITH GÁBOR TAKÁCS-NAGY

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

PARITY INTERVIEW WITH ANDRÁS KELLER AND GYÖRGY LAKATOS

CONCERTS IN APRIL

71 81

EVOCATION OF A SPIRIT "THE ESSENCE OF OPERA IS MAGIC" INTERVIEW WITH PIIA KOMSI

INDIVIDUALITY AND HOMOGENEITY INTERVIEW WITH GYÖRGY VASHEGYI

CONCERTS IN MAY

BEETHOVEN 'RESET' INTERVIEW WITH KLÁRA WÜRTZ AND KRISTÓF BARÁTI

103

CELESTIAL AND EARTHLY LOVE

108

LIVING MUSICAL MEMORY INTERVIEW WITH JORDI SAVALL

116

FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND

118

CONCERTS IN JUNE

124

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY

126

THE LISZT ACADEMY PRESENTS: THE LIBRARY

127

DESIGN OSCAR, CRAFT AWARD AND COMMUNICATION ARTS AWARD

132

CONCERT CHRONOLOGY

We have been witnesses to a very welcome phenomenon in recent years: Budapest and Hungary are cementing themselves as major destinations within Europe's musical circulation, with world stars and performers in every genre coming as regular guests to our concert halls. A kind of competition has developed between the different concert venues and festivals as to who can attract the best artists and offer the most exciting programmes for their audiences. And it is precisely those audiences who are the great beneficiary of this noble rivalry. However, this is not a battle focussing on one particular institution winning or commanding the market; rather the reality is cooperation and the development of new projects that inspire one another. The Liszt Academy represents a very important segment of this growing offering to audiences. We have barely begun our work â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and yet when we add up how many programmes we have created thus far, even we are surprised. The Liszt Academy, by its very nature, is a hugely inspiring environment: the expressive musical power here is always present and seeks to manifest itself. Thus we endeavour to allow it as much freedom as possible. Concerts by our teachers and students are especially important for us, and integral to this, so we are proud to have launched series for the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra. We aim to compile programmes which are striking in their individuality and uniqueness. We often take risks in this respect, since where is there more appropriate a place to show artistic daring than the Liszt Academy? We sense our responsibility in leading the way in quality, in presenting new talents, and in airing musical innovation. The artists are our splendid partners in this enterprise: they feel the same honour appearing on the stage of our concert hall, with all its immense traditions, as did their esteemed predecessors. The Liszt Academy Concert Centre strives continually to live up to the traditions and force of talent forever present within the walls of the Liszt Academy. AndrĂĄs Csonka Cultural Director of the Liszt Academy 2

Here is a concert magazine that seeks to be more than a proclamation of programmes basking in its own glory. Coming slightly under the influence of its own sophistication, it has thrown up a new leitmotif to provoke international discourse. The creative team had the stunning sensation of having opened up Pandora's box. On the afternoon of our brain-storming session when we struck upon the idea of the star system of classical music as the theme of the latest edition, it seemed a splendid way to pass the time and still does. I felt we should kick up some long-settled dust. I asked the highly influential, virtuosic classical music writer Norman Lebrecht to compose a lead article for us. And he wrote one. One could see from its first line that cool analysis of the theme is an illusion. “The star system, a mechanism devised to add glamour to bulk subscriptions, had spectacularly failed.” Then later: “The star system has choked the life out of classical futures.” András Keller then discusses how string quartets were once judged on their interpretational base, where we now find the world of optical tuning; Miklós Fáy and Gábor Takács-Nagy are basically in agreement in suggesting that if a female artist is good looking and wears a mini skirt, or wins the metaphorical photo finish by the width of her chest, then box office success is guaranteed. True, and yet... We sit in Liszt's house and constantly ponder just what sort of pure but effective communication we can use within our budget, which is modest compared to our ambitions (450 public concerts a year). We cannot maintain our position in the public eye by constantly ushering star orchestras through our doors, yet we must reach out to our audience, both new and old. Liszt invented ‘classical music show business’, and we would be poor students indeed, with the 140 years of august history behind us, if we did not attempt to address people through ground-breaking methods. We need the stars. But the question is whether we can operate as a special arena in the simplified system of the star cult. It seems that yes, perhaps we can. We have two great advantages: because of our university background, the Liszt Academy continually thinks about music – this is a structural given, and the teachers, as well as the students, maintain our great performing tradition; but also the relatively slender material resources of the concert centre encourage my colleagues to construct new paths. Drawing on the institution's international ranking and our own inventiveness, we have invited a star performer from each genre: Vilde Frang and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta are take to the stage together for the first time here; Mitsuko Uchida and Magdalena Kožená honour us with a prominent stop on their brief tour. The world's greatest cellists and quartets are coming, as are Vijay Iyer, Charles Dutoit and the Vienna Symphony orchestra... and the list goes on. We take chamber ensembles, chamber music, solo and Lieder recitals, quartets with the stars of their genre and say that this is the true, intimate, celebratory trouvaille. We ask you as before to believe in us. Because it is true. Stars, but done differently. Perhaps shared thinking with artists is the secret. Meditation about music. Imre Szabó Stein Editor-in-Chief / Director of Communications and Media Content Development, Liszt Academy 3

CATCH A FALLING STAR SYSTEM In the heat of last summer, a violinist felt a pain in her upper arm. She went to see a physician, who prescribed rest for at least six weeks. The diagnosis, communicated by her agent to musical organisations, triggered something akin to mass panic. Across musical America, season-opening brochures had to be reprinted and patrons informed. Orchestra managers hit their touch screens trying to dream up a non-existent replacement, fundraisers hit the phones to reassure key donors.

The star system, a mechanism devised to add glamour to bulk subscriptions, had spectacularly failed. In the second decade of a celebrity-fixated century, only three violinists had succeeded in crossing the threshold of name recognition. The fame game had shrunk itself to size zero. Almost all the cherries had gone from the concert cake. In an era of anxiety and decline, with a greying audience and artists booked three years in advance, classical music found itself totally dependent on a tiny pool of proven attractions. Wherever one looked, it was always the same few names. At Echo Klassik, the art’s German TV showcase, only six divas have won singer of the year since 2002 – as if six were enough to sustain the opera houses of 100 great cities. Are the rest voiceless nonentities? China, the fastest–growing music market, is carved up between two viral rivalries: the global brand wearer Lang Lang and the national youth icon Yundi Li. Lang Lang has more product endorsements, but Yundi outnumbers him by tens of millions on social media. Aside from these two, no other pianist gets a name check in mainland China. Great violinists, once a bristling pack, have been whittled down to Hahn, Bell and Mutter, a collective that sounds like a discreet firm of Boston lawyers. There are still local stardoms – Renaud Capucon in France, Nigel Kennedy in England, Frank-Peter Zimmerman in Germany – but on the biggest of stages, the first three reign supreme. Half a century ago, when Jascha Heifetz was universally regarded as the violinist par excellence, his fee was just ten percent higher than the next fifteen fiddlers, a margin that he demanded and one which reflected, accurately, a fundamental equality at the head of the profession. If Heifetz cancelled, he would easily be replaced by Milstein, Menuhin, Oistrakh, Stern, Szigeti, Haendel, Kogan, Gitlis, Elman, Suk, Grumiaux, Francescatti, Accardo and more. Whatever happened to diversity? The violinist Gidon Kremer was the first to sound the alarm when, in the summer of 2011, he made a public withdrawal from the stellar Verbier Festival. “I simply do not want to breathe the air, which is filled by sensationalism and distorted values,” wrote Kremer. “Let’s admit: all of us have something to do with the poisonous development of our music world, in which ‘stars’ count more than creativity, ratings more than genuine talent, numbers more than… sounds.” In a follow-up letter to me he added: “Some of those artists are obvious victims of aspects of this modern musical industry… I do question the integrity of those gifted musicians who are ready to trade their talent for symbolic ‘recognition’ on the wall of ‘stars’.”

NORMAN LEBRECHT 4

How this planetary impoverishment came about is a process too long for the confines of this essay, but the final stages amounted to what climatologists refer to as ‘a perfect storm’. The record industry, which had gently nurtured a profusion of classical artists for almost a century, suffered an irreversible

collapse at the turn of the millennium (you will find the events described in my book The Life and Death of Classical Music). The end of recording coincided with the emergence of a quick-click internet, the viral menace of ‘reality TV’ and the shortening of Andy Warhol’s proverbial 15 minutes of fame to something less than 15 seconds. In the new-media environment, where anyone can become famous overnight for an internet instant, those artists who had earned a reputation before records gave way to downloads were able to carry their kudos into the flickering future. Others, younger or less advanced, found the gateway to fame locked up and guarded by the dragons of media triviality. Never in three centuries of concert activity has it been harder for a young artist to succeed. The sclerosis of the old star system has been compounded by a parallel sub-industry of international competitions, where music professors conspire to promote each other’s pupils, and talent is paraded before an indifferent audience like war slaves in a Roman market. Once or twice, a true talent has smashed the barriers – as the pianist Daniil Trifonov did at the last Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow – but winning a competition is no longer a guarantee of a long career. With a dwindling window of opportunity on mass media and the deadening irrelevance of most print media, how is a new artist ever to catch the eye of an indifferent society? Some, like the YouTube pianist Valentina Lisitsa, created online sensations. Others, like Joshua Bell, attempt live-TV flash mobs. Most, hemmed in by tradition and fear, carry on flying from one hall to the next, playing to half-empty rows, praying that the bookings will continue. The star system has choked the life out of classical futures. Disaster, however, is ever the engine of invention. Orchestras and festivals, facing a shrunken fame pool, have been forced to think hard and fast. In New York, the Philharmonic installed this season as artist-in-residence a Georgian-born violinist of whom few subscribers had ever heard before. Lisa Batiashvili, in her mid-30s, is musically eloquent and politically outspoken, a Kremer in the making who will never play the star game, and so much the better for that. On the opposite coast, the Los Angeles Philharmonic employed a video artist to ‘paint’ the interior of Walt Disney Hall during concerts, changing the environment, enhancing the experience. In Stockholm, a conductor asked philosophers to rethink his season. In Budapest, a conductor starts rehearsals with a half-hour sing-along. This is no time to sit and mourn the death of the star system. It is a death long foretold and long overdue. This is a time of opportunity, a time to reinvent the musical wheel. © Norman Lebrecht, October 2014

SATURDAY 3 JANUARY, 16.00

SATURDAY 3 JANUARY, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

THE MAGIC FLUTE Mozart: The Magic Flute Artistic director: Éva Marton Director: András Almási-Tóth Translation: Dániel Varró Stage concept: András Almási-Tóth Stage design: Krisztina Lisztopád Costumes: Maison Marquise by Bori Tóth Choral director: Csaba Somos Choreography: Tamás Juronics Sarastro: Géza Gábor The Queen of the Night: Viktória Varga Tamino: Gyula Rab Pamina: Zita Szemere Papageno: Csaba Gaál Papagena: Eszter Zavaros Monostatos/First priest: Béla T. Gippert Old priest: Dávid Dani First lady: Lilla Horti Second lady: Klára Vincze Third lady: Szilvia Vörös First boy: Tamás Kiss Second boy: Barnabás Szabó Third boy: Gábor Bobori Flautist: Kata Scheuring

FÉLIX LAJKÓ NEW YEAR’S CONCERT Félix Lajkó (violin)

Students of the Hungarian Dance Academy and Choir of the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra and Liszt Academy’s students Conductor: Ádám Medveczky The Liszt Academy’s production of The Magic Flute features recent graduates of the department of vocal studies, headed by Andrea Meláth, together with rising stars of Hungarian opera. Artistic director of the performance, Éva Marton, and director, stage performance

professor of the department, András Almási-Tóth, focus on the Art Nouveau building of the Academy of Music, giving it the lead role in this performance, which is designed to attract young people. After all, what other than music would be capable of harmonizing the opposites of darkness and light, intellect and emotions, higher ideals and natural instincts, Sarastro and The Queen of the Night? Tickets: HUF 4 500, 5 400 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Alaine Polcz set up the Hungarian Hospice Foundation in 1991, and in the past nearly quarter of a century it has assisted many people suffering from incurable diseases to depart this world with dignity. Félix Lajkó lends his support to the foundation through this concert; he has arranged a series of concerts marking his 40th birth-day, the first one being this performance. Budapest audiences need little introduction to the violin skills of Félix Lajkó, and to set these down on paper is simply impossible. His play is frequently termed ‘world music’, but this tag is only valid in his case in that the entire world is present in his music. The USP of his Liszt Academy concert is that he will be on the podium of the Grand Hall all by himself, entrancing the audience while ‘armed’ solely with his violin. Tickets: HUF 4 500, 5 900, 6 900, 8 900, 11 900 Organizer: Hungarian Hospice Foundation

FRIDAY 9 JANUARY, 19.00

SATURDAY 10 JANUARY, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL TRANSPARENT SOUND NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT

FERENC RADOS & MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture op. 26 Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 54 Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F major, op. 68 (‘Pastoral’) Ferenc Rados (piano) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Gábor Takács-Nagy

FERENC RADOS © ZOLTÁN MÁTHÉ

Two extraordinary musicians take lead roles in this concert of popular works by the long-established MÁV Symphony Orchestra. It is always a great thing when one of the most significant and exciting Hungarian pianists of our day, Ferenc Rados, takes to the stage. The Kossuth Prize artist, known for his suggestiveness, pure and natural musicality, performs – together with the superb orchestra – one of the finest Romantic concerto pieces, the Schumann concerto for piano, which was completed 170 years ago. The conductor is Gábor TakácsNagy, founder and former first violinist of the string quartet bearing his name. With his experience of several decades in the world of chamber music, he places, as orchestra conductor, emphasis on instrumentalists reacting to each other, and through this he reveals the chamber music character of symphonic creations, illuminating the score and creating in the audience the sense that the composition is being created here and now. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Otto M. Zykan: Nachtstück für ein Schiff Simon Steen-Andersen: Next to Beside Besides Otto M. Zykan: Beethovens Pferd Samu Gryllus: Blaubarts George Aperghis: Commentaires (excerpts) George Aperghis: 14 Jactations (excerpts) Maurice Lenhard (baritone) THReNSeMBle Conductor: Balázs Horváth Georges Aperghis has been researching the musical aspects of stage presence, spectacle and speech for four decades. Revealingly, his work Commentaires is categorized either as musical theatre or as opera. The Jactations cycle for solo baritone reveals the possibilities for a variety of genre interpretations of the human voice. Samu Gryllus composed his mono-chamber opera at the request of Theater an der Wien in 2011 on the basis of the libretto by Zoltán András Bán, developing the well-known Bluebeard myth. The mystical castle is now the embodiment of the womb; the maternal and paternal sides of the personality of Bluebeard are outlined in the monologue of the lead role. All of the works of Dane Simon Steen-Anderson fall into the choreographic translations category, that is, music created by movements of identical origin presented on a variety of musical instruments. Every concert at this year’s Transparent Sound New Music Festival features works by Austrian artist Otto M. Zykan, who worked in several genres before his death in 2006. Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre, Trafó, Fuga, Budapest Music Center, Gryllus Kft., MuPATh Sponsors: NKA, Austrian Cultural Forum 7

SUNDAY 11 JANUARY, 19.00

MONDAY 12 JANUARY, 19.30

TUESDAY 13 JANUARY, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA BRUCKNER – BEAUTY AND FAITH

ON THE SPOT NEW MUSIC Cage: Cheap Imitation László Sáry: ... and the Sun Szervánszky: Serenade A Zenakadémia hallgatói Conductors: Zsolt Serei and András Wilheim When in 1971 Hungarian Radio launched a monumental concert series, lasting for a full month, drawing from the previous quarter of a century production of Hungarian music, both József Ujfalussy and György Kroó emphasized the thought-provoking character of the retrospective. It beneficially refreshes our patchy memory “…if that section of the way in which we prefer to consider only the start and the end is revealed in its continuity,” wrote Ujfalussy. Even then a few works in the programme stood out, for example, the string orchestral Serenade, composed by Endre Szervánszky in 1947–48, was then considered by György Kroó to be a significant composition of the recent past. An important work by John Cage, Cheap Imitation, examines the nature of musical memory as a central question. How far can we follow a work if only the rhythm reminds us of the piece (Erik Satie: Socrate) serving as a reference, and how can we orientate ourselves in the composition if we don’t know the model at all? And what is our ‘task’ when the music does not even demand that the listener exercises memory because it is settled in itself (as in the László Sáry work, composed for string quartet)? Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: NKA 8

Nielsen: Violin Concerto, op. 33 Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E major (WAB 107)

BEYOND MUSIC... TAMÁS VÁSÁRY MUSICAL CONVERSATIONS

Antal Zalai (violin) Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Conductor: Máté Hámori

Works by Schubert

Tamás Vásáry plays piano, conducts and talks about music. Anyone who has enjoyed such an event will know that it is far from easy to decide which is the greatest and most fundamental experience. On this occasion the Kossuth Prize-winning artist recalls Franz Schubert, the ill-fated composer who simply overflowed with masterpieces, writing more than 1000 compositions in 16 years. He was the innovator of the song genre, a person not understood by Goethe but who understood Goethe’s poetry more profoundly than any of his contemporaries; the great composer of symphonies who felt that he could not follow in Beethoven’s footsteps and thus sought new ways to provide inspiration for the next generation of Schumann and Mendelssohn. Naturally, Tamás Vásáry conjures up the principle figure of convivial Schubertiades, a person who remained lonely even in the midst of busy social gatherings and who did not believe that there was such a thing as cheerful music.

We still tend to think of the Danubia Orchestra Óbuda as a youthful ensemble. This was the case a while ago, but in the couple of decades that have passed since then and today the orchestra, founded by Domonkos Héja, have become a leading presence in concert life in Hungary. The 2014–2015, twentieth season of the Danubia is extremely important because their new artistic director, Máté Hámori, is guiding the ensemble; thus the artistic concept, the new dynamism, and the new colours in the palette of the orchestra all reflect his concepts. The soloist for this concert is not even 33 years old, but the list of world famous musicians with whom he has performed is already very long indeed. It is a notable coincidence that Antal Zalai graduated in 2009 in exactly the same city and institution – the Royal Academy of Music, Brussels – where Jenő Hubay, who played a key role in the life of the Liszt Academy and founded his own school, taught 130 year ago. This youthful musician, a familiar figure in Carnegie Hall and many other top venues, performs Carl Nielsen’s popular Violin Concerto. The other work is Austrian Anton Bruckner’s most frequently performed piece, captivating for its melody and glorious orchestral tones, and which in its slow movement mourns the passing of Richard Wagner.

Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 000, 4 000 Organizer: MR Music Ensembles

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 200, 3 800, 4 700 Organizer: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Kft.

Júlia Hajnóczy (soprano) Szabolcs Brickner (tenor) MR Symphony Orchestra Conductor, piano and narrator: Tamás Vásáry

TIME BOMB (2006) © DEZSŐ SZABÓ / VINTAGE GALLERY

THURSDAY 15 JANUARY, 19.30

FRIDAY 16 JANUARY, 20.00

GRAND HALL

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO YULIANNA AVDEEVA PIANO RECITAL

BÉLA SZAKCSI LAKATOS & GUESTS FRANCISCAN CHARITY RECITAL FOR AUTISM

Mozart: Sonata in D major (K. 284) Liszt: Sacred Dance and finalé from Verdi’s Aida Liszt: Dante Sonata Chopin: 24 preludes, op. 28 Yulianna Avdeeva (piano)

YULIANNA AVDEEVA © HARALD HOFFMAN

The youthful Yulianna Avdeeva, one of the outstanding talents of the Russian school of piano, takes to the stage of the Liszt Academy as part of the series that has been a favourite of Hungarian audiences for decades. She first studied at the Gnessin Special School of Music and, since 2008, has been attending the International Piano Academy Lake Como. Yulianna Avdeeva exploded onto the world stage when she won the International Chopin Competition, held in Warsaw in Chopin Year, 2010. She is just the fourth woman to have won the competition, and the first since Martha Argerich’s triumph in 1965. Over the past few years she has appeared together with world famous ensembles and musicians such as Marek Janowski, Charles Dutoit, Vladimir Fedoseyev and Julia Fischer, the New York Philharmonics, NHK Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonics and Pittsburgh Symphonics. The globe-trotting musician gives a hint of a repertoire that demands remarkable technical skills – including a complete Chopin suite – which has won her fervent acclaim from New York to Stockholm and Tokyo. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 4 000, 5 000, 6 000, 8 000 Organizer: Jakobi Ltd.

Works by Gershwin and Bernstein, and paraphrases on themes by the composers Guests: Nikoletta Szőke, Szilvia Vörös, Zséda, Ádám Horváth (vocal) Béla Szakcsi Lakatos (piano) György Orbán (double bass) Elemér Balázs (drums) Love frequently bursts into a person’s life unexpectedly and with elemental force. Francesco di Bernardone, son of a prosperous silk merchant in Florence, lived a high-spirited life and enjoyed earthly possessions. However, on seeing the results of war he was transformed. From that moment on, he devoted himself to the service of the poor and forgotten. He became known to later generations as St Francis of Assisi. To this day charitable activities play a key part in the everyday life of the Franciscan Order, and now this activity is manifest in the form of a concert at the Liszt Academy. Kossuth Prize-laureate Béla Szakcsi Lakatos and his fellow musicians have selected from the works of two composers who lived on the fringes of jazz and classical music. Several fine singers join the musicians to bring the art of George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein alive: jazz singer Nikoletta Szőke, the star Zséda from the pop scene, plus Szilvia Vörös and Ádám Horváth, who arrive from the classical world. Tickets: HUF 3 700, 5 100, 6 500, 7 900 Organizer: Franciscan Order of Our Lady of Hungary

SATURDAY 17 JANUARY, 19.30 SUNDAY 18 JANUARY, 19.30

MONDAY 19 JANUARY, 19.00

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL VARVARA NEPOMNYASHCHAYA & CONCERTO BUDAPEST Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, op. 73 Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor (WAB 109) Varvara Nepomnyashchaya (piano) Concerto Budapest Conductor: Alexander Sladkovsky

VARVARA NEPOMNYASHCHAYA © PRISKA KETTERER

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL SITCOM LISZT ACADEMY Sitcom – American TV series, episode 126 (Based on works by Rossini) Vocalists: Domonkos Blazsó, Andrea Brassói-Jőrös, Attila Erdős, István Czikora, Anita Csóka, Anna Jánoshegyi, Ferenc Kristofori, Alexandra Ruszó, Xénia Sárkoziová, Luszine Szahakjan, Nóra Tatai, Anikó Vida, Zuo You Director: András Almási-Tóth Choreographer: Eszter Lázár Music assistant: Szabolcs Sándor Set design, costumes: Sára Szalai Concerto Budapest Conductor: János Ács

Appearances by musicians who are ranked among the best on their instruments yet who we rarely have a chance to hear always arouse particular expectation. This time we have the pleasure of meeting two such artists at the same time in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy, and both are supreme exponents of the distinguished Russian school of music. The guest soloist studied at the Moscow Conservatoire, and from 2013 she has been perfecting her craft in Hamburg under Yevgeny Koroliov. When winning the Géza Anda Piano Competition in Zurich in 2012, the jury also awarded her the Mozart prize. The conductor for this recital was born in the port town of Taganrog in 1965, studied in the conservatories in Moscow and St Petersburg, and has strong links with the latter institution having conducted its orchestra for several years. Alexander Sladkovsky has conducted many other ensembles in his home country and worked as assistant to Maris Jansons and Mstislav Rostropovich. As artistic director of the Tatar National Symphony Orchestra he has performed throughout Europe, working with such renowned musicians as Nicolai Lugansky, Vagyim Repin, Montserrat Caballé and Roberto Alagna.

Sitcom – ‘situation comedy’ – is generally applied to a series where the figures (colleagues, friends, family) spend their time in a common space (workplace, home, café) and get tangled up in a variety of largely comic situations. They are typically recorded in front of a live audience in order to leverage their reactions (laughter, applause, etc.). In the 18 th and 19 th centuries vaudeville was the musical stage equivalent; from the 20 th century first radio and then television took over the genre, working with identical characters and situations changing from episode to episode but always concluding with a ‘happy ending’. The half-term opera exam at the Liszt Academy weaves three operas by Rossini – La Scala di Seta (The Silk Ladder), L’Italiana in Algeri (An Italian Woman in Algiers) and Il Viaggio a Reims (The Journey to Reims) – into a single-series episode where misunderstandings in love lead to the great reconciliation, just so that the strands can once be tangled up in time for the next part.

Tickets: HUF 3 300, 4 800, 6 500 Organizer: Concerto Budapest

Tickets: HUF 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 11

ZOLTÁN KOCSIS AND THE LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (23 NOVEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / LÁSZLÓ MUDRA I. INTERNATIONAL ÉVA MARTON SINGING COMPETITION FINALS (20 SEPTEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA

ISABELLE FAUST, HEINZ HOLLIGER AND THE STUTTGART RADIO SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA (24 OCTOBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ÁKOS STILLER 12

DAVID LANG AT LISZT ACADEMY (26 OCTOBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ÁKOS STILLER

JEAN-EFFLAM BAVOUZET (5 NOVEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA

BRUSSELS JAZZ ORCHESTRA (19 NOVEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA 13

TUESDAY 20 JANUARY, 19.30

THURSDAY 22 JANUARY, 19.00

FRIDAY 23 JANUARY, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

MVM CONCERTS – THREE FACES OF JÁNOS BALÁZS 1 JÁNOS BALÁZS ORCHESTRAL PIANO RECITAL J. S. Bach: Piano Concerto in F minor (BWV 1056) J. S. Bach: Piano Concerto in D minor (BWV 1052) Chopin: Piano Concerto in F minor, op. 21 (arrangement for string orchestra) János Balázs (piano) Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra (artistic director: László G. Horváth) “György Cziffra was always my greatest role model,” admitted the young pianist, who has already triumphed at several competitions. “I listened to his records at home; my musician parents always mentioned his name with reverence. He was an exceptional virtuoso and played every piece in his own inimitable style. I never tried to copy him, but I endeavour to have an immediately recognizable sound, just as he had.” In light of this it comes as no surprise to find that János Balázs Jnr prefers playing works by composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Schumann, which give him plenty of space for free expression and the display of intense emotions. On the first evening of his three-part series he performs three piano concertos on the stage of the Liszt Academy: Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor and two Bach compositions. The concert is accompanied by the Junior Prima Prize-winning Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra. Tickets: HUF 2 000, 2 500, 3 000, 4 000, 5 000 Organizer: Jakobi Ltd. 14

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL DON GIOVANNI CHERUBINI CONSERVATOIRE, FLORENCE Mozart: Don Giovanni Director: Francesco Torrigiani Assistant director: Anna Tereshchenko Production coordinator: Leonardo de Lisi Lighting: Lucilla Baroni Costume: Lisa Rufini Costume maker: Lowcostume (Rome) Piano accompaniment: Gianni Fabbrini “If an opera such as this aims at, and hits, the mark of the genitals, then it keeps the world of culture, artists, scientists and the general public in a permanently aroused state. It is satisfying for both healthy and frustrated sexuality. And every cultured person understands Don Giovanni: there are many clichés in the mind, such as ‘the opera of operas’, ‘sensuality as principum’, that Don Giovanni and Donna Anna… yes, contra Donna Anna and Don Ottavio… no, Don Juan and Faust (namely, Don Juan is the Faust of the South, and Faust is the Don Juan of the North, and in a different version: Don Juan is the Faust of sensuality, Faust is the Don Juan of the spirit), etc.” Géza Fodor wrote these words about this legendary Mozart work, here presented by the students of the Cherubini Conservatoire, Florence, at the second Opera Exam Festival organized by the Liszt Academy. This is the same ensemble that captivated the audience of the Sir Georg Solti Chamber Hall last year with a fascinatingly mature performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Tickets: HUF 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL SITCOM LISZT ACADEMY Sitcom – American TV series, episode 126 (Based on works by Rossini) Vocalists: Domonkos Blazsó, Andrea Brassói- Jőrös, Attila Erdős, István Czikora, Anita Csóka, Anna Jánoshegyi, Ferenc Kristofori, Alexandra Ruszó, Xénia Sárkoziová, Luszine Szahakjan, Nóra Tatai, Anikó Vida, Zuo You Director: András Almási-Tóth Choreographer: Eszter Lázár Music assistant: Szabolcs Sándor Set design, costumes: Sára Szalai Concerto Budapest Conductor: János Ács See details on page 11. Tickets: HUF 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

A hír mindenkié – adja tovább!

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2014.11.10. 16:01

FRIDAY 23 JANUARY, 19.30

SATURDAY 24 JANUARY, 19.30

SUNDAY 25 JANUARY, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK BALÁZS FÜLEI & MR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Brahms: Tragic Overture, op. 81 Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2 (BB 101) József Sári: Jakob’s Ringen mit der Finsternis – for string orchestra (premiere) R. Strauss: Death and Transfiguration, op. 24 Balázs Fülei (piano) MR Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Gergely Vajda

J. S. Bach–Stokowski: Passacaglia J. S. Bach–Stokowski: Chaconne J. S. Bach–Stokowski: Toccata and Fugue in D minor Mendelssohn: Lobgesang Budapest Academic Choral Society (choral director: Csaba Tőri) Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok Conductor: Gábor Hollerung

The concert audience has to take a long journey from Brahms’s tragic concert overture to the brilliant transfiguration – arriving in C major – of Richard Strauss. The path leads through Bartók’s second piano concerto, written in 1930, in which the listener can sense a folk tradition and Stravinsky’s neoclassical tongue alongside the inimitable Bartók intonation: as he put it, the "bone and muscle" style of piano playing. The world premiere of the string orchestra work by József Sári relates one of the most ancient stories of transfiguration in European cultural history, that of Jacob, who has harboured the sins of decades in his heart, crying out for forgiveness in the deep of night, having to undergo a fantastic battle, and with the dawn of a new day being a transformed person. The concert concludes with the Richard Strauss composition on the mystery of death, Death and Transfiguration. The MR Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Gergely Vajda (first conductor of the ensemble between 2011 and 2014), with the principal part of the Bartók piece played by Balázs Fülei, chamber music professor at the Liszt Academy ( just one week before his solo recital in the Grand Hall).

In the first half of the concert of Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok we hear orchestral arrangements of instrumental works by Bach. The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which was originally composed for the organ, was first performed by an orchestra in Walt Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia in a grandiose transcription and under the baton of legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski, who, what’s more, made an appearance in the film. The Bach masterpiece Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor was the first organ work that the British-born conductor – who went on to become a world star in the USA – rewrote for a symphony orchestra, while the arrangement of the variation suite Chaconne in D minor, which was originally for solo violin, was equally effective. Symphony No. 2 by Felix Mendelssohn, who undertook the lion’s share of the discovery of Bach music, is performed after the interval. This work was partly composed under the influence of Baroque oratorios and Bach. The cantata-type work, written to Biblical scripts, is closely associated with the great Johann Sebastian, since it was written at the request of the Leipzig city council on the 400th anniversary of the invention of book printing, while its premiere was held in St Thomas Church, a venue renowned for its associations with Bach, 175 years ago.

Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 000, 4 000 Organizer: MR Music Ensembles

Tickets: HUF 3 200, 3 900, 4 500 Organizer: Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL THE ANGEL OF THE ODD UNIVERSITY OF ARTS IN POZNAŃ Bruno Colli: The Angel of the Odd Director: Krzysztof Cicheński Set design: Magda Flisowska Costumes: Laura Skowron Lighting: Marek Rydian Angel: Magdalena Wachowska Hero: Hubert Walawski Journalist: Julian Kuczyński Narrator: Marcin Kluczykowski Orchestra of the Poznań Opera House Conductor: Grzegorz Wierus Strange coincidences can happen to anyone. We don’t always attribute significance to them; quite often we do not even think of them as real. Perhaps it was just an absurd dream, or hallucinations caused by too much blue cheese. However, when a disturbing and incredible coincidence, generally called a misfortune, upsets our plans and we no longer feel secure, then the following questions arise: ‘why me?’, ‘who is behind this?’, and ‘where was my guardian angel?’ The opera production of the Poznań University of Arts seeks answers to these very questions in the work by Geneva-born Bruno Coli, the basis for which is the satirical novel of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. Coli is one of the busiest theatrical composers of our day, having composed several operas, musicals and theatrical soundtracks. Tickets: HUF 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

bartók, kodály és a walbauer-kerpely vonósnégyes (FOTÓ: SZÉKELY FLOWER ALADÁR STUDIES 1910, FORRÁS: MTA ZENETUDOMÁNYI INTÉZET BARTÓK ARCHIVUM © JUDIT FOTÓTÁRA) MARJAI

SUNDAY 25 JANUARY, 11.00

TUESDAY 27 JANUARY, 19.30

WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY, 19.30

GRAND HALL

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST Cimarosa: The Secret Marriage – overture Bottesini: Capriccio for two double basses (JGB 9.11) Bottesini: Concerto for two double basses (JGB 9.13) Franck: Symphony in D minor Gergely Járdányi, Ödön Rácz (double bass) Zugló Philharmonics Budapest Conductor: Ádám Medveczky

UNDERSTANDABLE MUSIC DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK ERNŐ DOHNÁNYI

This season the 'Understandable Music' series of the Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok (with conductor Gábor Hollerung) pays tribute to 'World citizens of Hungarian music'. The concert revolves around Ernő Dohnányi, former director of the Liszt Academy and pianist role model of the young Bartók, who was perhaps the most fascinating pianist of the first half of the 20th century, as well as being a hugely important composer. Through Gábor Hollerung’s production we can learn not only about Dohnányi’s career – which spanned continents and is rich in its diversity – but also one of his most witty works, the extremely virtuosic piano variations with orchestral accompaniment composed to the children’s song Hull a pelyhes fehér hó (“Flakes of white snow are falling”). Kossuth Prize-winner Jenő Jandó, one-time teacher at the Liszt Academy, is the soloist.

Celebrated as the Paganini of the double bass, Giovanni Bottesini was also a talented composer and conductor. That the double bass can appear today on the concert stage as a solo instrument is largely due to the innovations Bottesini introduced in the 19th century and his expansion of opportunities regarding instrumental technique. Two of the most accomplished experts of the double bass perform the Capriccio and Concerto by Bottesini: Gergely Járdányi, renowned both as a researcher and interpreter of Bottesini, and his student, solo double bassist with the Vienna Philharmonics, Ödön Rácz. Zugló Philharmonics Budapest (with conductor Ádám Medveczky) bookend the two Bottesini works with two pieces that are diametrically opposed in terms of mood. The liveliness and the variety of hilarious and derisive characters of The Secret Marriage (Il matrimonio segreto) recall overtures of Mozart’s comic operas. In contrast, the Symphony in D minor, which concludes the concert is certainly not as ‘playful’. Through its composition César Franck undertook – with the background of an enflamed political situation – no less a task than the unification of French and German symphonic music traditions.

Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 300, 2 700 Organizer: Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok

Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 100, 2 500 Organizer: Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Dohnányi: Variations on a Child’s Song, op. 25 Jenő Jandó (piano) Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok Narrator and conductor: Gábor Hollerung

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO BALÁZS FÜLEI PIANO RECITAL J. S. Bach: English Suite in D minor (BWV 811) Bartók: Dance Suite (BB 86) Grieg: 17 Norwegian Peasant Dances, op. 72 Ginastera: 3 Argentine Dances, op. 2 Balázs Fülei (piano) Stylized Baroque dances, folk music sublimated into a dance suite of different nationalities, Norwegian peasant dances and Argentine dances in 20 th-century guise all feature in the solo recital of Junior Prima Prize-holder Balázs Fülei. The concert by the Liszt Academy’s professor of chamber music could bear the title ‘Dances of Peoples’, though ‘Dances of Souls’ would be equally appropriate, as the music is suited not for foot tapping but for profound listening. The monumental synthesis of Bach’s English Suite in D minor is everything possible in the universe of stylized Baroque dances; Bartók’s Dance Suite – the orchestral origins of which were composed for the 50 th anniversary of the unification of Pest, Buda and Óbuda – expresses, in the language of music and by placing the peasant music of different nationalities alongside each other, the idea of peoples forming a brotherhood. Grieg immortalizes the folk heritage of his own nation in artistic concert music, while Alberto Ginastera, the greatest Argentine composer of the 20th century, links two rapid étude-like dances with an elegiac slow piece to create a genuine 20th century sonata cycle from the three dances. Tickets: HUF 2 000, 2 500, 3 000, 4 000, 5 000 Organizer: Jakobi Ltd.

RADICALLY DIFFERENT I have in my mind's eye a movement suggestive of pulling plants from the soil. Some slip out easily, their long narrow roots unable to cling to the soil. But there are others that extend outwards, with small strands that secure them in the life-giving medium with the solidity of concrete. When I pull these, my knuckles go white and, with a huge crack, their roots bring up an enormous clump of earth. Such roots can only be grown if they have the right fertiliser.

I became a pianist. I committed my life to an instrument that perhaps does not have the most beautiful sound but possesses undoubtedly the richest repertoire. Its inexhaustible nature is both inspiring and oppressive. I have played in numerous combinations, from various chamber music groups to concerto works. Every musician has in the depths of his soul a feeling of the sort of concert where he feels most at home. For me, it is the solo concert and the evening recital. To take possession of an entire stage on the threshold of night, to lead the listeners down paths both familiar and untrodden – at these times, I have a sense of my place in the world as an eagle has when circling above a fertile field. A solo recital is like constructing an imaginary kingdom through the programme plan about which I am both the expert and the guide. There is a plan: I wish to show this, this, and this. But, who knows, perhaps we will glimpse places that do not feature on the itinerary – this depends upon my audience. An artist giving a solo recital can change at any moment. As a listener, this vibration is what always fastens my ears and eyes upon the pianist. When I give a solo recital I have to be consumed by the flames of passion in music, no one can share in it, no one can help. Of course, on these occasions I still have to be a chamber musician as well: in a single phrase, a multi-voice dialogue can unfold which in people's poetic moments is experienced in the depths of the soul and which holds a conference with their different selves. When I place my hand on the keyboard, I sense beneath me thousands of indestructible roots from which the music to be played springs like a flower. These roots conceal Ferenc Liszt, István Thomán, Béla Bartók, Ernő Dohnányi and their students, as well as their students’ students, who were my own teachers. “When I move, they embrace each other.” In this realm, one's relationship with a master is comparable to adoption. I belong to them until the end of my life and beyond. It is less than a blood relationship but more than any alliance. In every note I play, I take my masters with me; but there is one place on the world where they are sitting waiting for me: when I perform in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. When there is a piano concert in the Grand Hall, Ferenc Liszt jumps from the façade, from in front of hall number 10, and takes his seat in the rector's box with the whole faculty alongside him. They are my roots. With them, I can clutch the ground with such strength in this rhapsodic career, the motto of which is: ‘If it is music, there can be nothing more important’. What has always interested me primarily in music making is how to share it with others. I have to do everything in my practice room so that the work is ready for performance in my head, my hands and my body. If just one person hears what I am doing, I sense that I have become one with them, that we are creating together. In this imaginary world we talk to each other, we touch each other – this is music. Our roots intertwine and for as long as the music sounds, we will become different: we will become our real selves.

Balázs Fülei © CSABA TIBA

Balázs Fülei 19

THURSDAY 29 JANUARY, 19.30

FRIDAY 30 JANUARY, 19.00

SATURDAY 31 JANUARY, 10.30; 15.00

GRAND HALL

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CARNIVAL CONCERT

MISKOLC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Wagner: Wesendonck Songs Liszt: Faust Symphony Judit Németh (mezzo-soprano), Attila Fekete (tenor) Nyíregyháza Cantemus Chorus Miskolc Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Tamás Gál Two masterpieces of 19 th-century Romanticism are performed by the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra, which has functioned as a professional ensemble for more than 25 years. They perform under the baton of Tamás Gál, appointed artistic director in 2014. The two works are rarely presented together in a single concert, even though the praise of womanhood is the central theme of both. Mathilde Wesendonck, the inspiration behind the opera Tristan and Isolde and the great love of the youthful composer’s life, wrote the poems that went to make up Richard Wagner’s characteristic songs and which are perhaps unique in the history of music. Judit Németh sings the five orchestral songs; she launched her career in Miskolc and has appeared on numerous occasions at the Bayreuth Festival, which is dedicated to the music of Wagner. She is thus intimate with, and a great exponent of, Wagner’s style. The grandiose Liszt symphony, which combines Goethe drama with the mystery of music, is a genuine masterwork and a triumph of the creative spirit. Tickets: HUF 2 900, 3 900 Organizer: Miskolc Symphony Orchestra 20

Milhaud: The Ox on the Roof Ravel: Pavane for a Dead Princess Massenet: Meditation (excerpt from the opera Thais) Offenbach: Parisian Life (excerpts) Strauss: Die Fledermaus – overture Kreisler: Love’s Joy Kreisler: Love’s Sorrow Kreisler: Schön Rosmarin J. Strauss: Waltzes MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor and violin accompaniment: Péter Csaba What are an ox and a bat doing at a concert? Is gaiety or a meditative mood more typical of Paris? Can love’s joy exist without love’s sorrow? The carnival concert of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra takes up these and similar questions in a selection of works by French and Austrian composers. The cheerful, vivacious mood of the evening is created by the scandalously surrealistic work The Ox on the Roof by Milhaud. Although Die Fledermaus by Strauss is set at New Year, the masked ball which defines the character of the overture, as well as the intricate tangles characteristic of opera scenarios, are identifiable with the genre of carnival. Kreisler frequently wrote works under the names Tartini and Vivaldi (perhaps as a sort of carnival joke), but in the current concert he is present under his real name. The violin part of Schön Rosmarin by the composer, who became world famous as a violin virtuoso, is played by none other than Péter Csaba, conductor of the concert and also a respected violinist. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

STORY-TELLING MUSIC FOREST MURMURS Forest, Forest, Forest – Hungarian folk song Smetana: Moldova – excerpt Vivaldi: Four Seasons – Spring Mozart: German Dance (K.605) – Sleigh Ride Grieg: Peer Gynt – Morning Bartók: Bear Dance – excerpt Weber: Magic Hunter – excerpt J. Strauss: The Hunt – polka Szeged Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Sándor Gyüdi Narrator: Tamás Lakner The close connection between music and nature is as old as the history of music itself. In this we are thinking not of the babbling brook, the keening of the wind or birdsong as music in themselves, but rather that composers have expressed their love of nature over many centuries. Story-telling Music, the longest established ‘brand’ of youth concerts in Hungary, presents the relationship between music and the forest, selecting from pieces of the past 300 years or so. The Szeged Symphony Orchestra are conducted by Liszt Prize-laureate Sándor Gyüdi, first conductor of the ensemble and director of the Szeged National Theatre. Famous choral conductor Tamás Lakner, dean of the faculty of arts of the University of Pécs, guides the audience through the musical forests. Tickets: HUF 1 500 Organizer: Philharmonia Hungary Concert and Festival Agency

ENTRY IN THE GUEST BOOK OF LISZT ACADEMY DAVID LANG (26 OCTOBER 2014)

SATURDAY 31 JANUARY, 19.00

TUESDAY 3 FEBRUARY, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

TALENT OBLIGE MIHÁLY DEMENIV J. S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp major (BWV 848) D. Scarlatti: Sonata in C major (K. 159) Petri Makkonen: … Like swans Liszt: Harmonies du Soir Albéniz: Asturias Viacheslav Semionov: Sonata No. 3 – 2 nd movement Prokofiev: Toccata in D minor, op. 11 Franck Angelis: Boite a Rhythm Franck Angelis: Impasse Mihály Demeniv (accordion)

MIHÁLY DEMENIV © ANIKÓ BUDAHÁZI

“If only the artist of the future would mark out the goal within himself, and not without, and virtuosity would be the means alone and not the ultimate aim. If only he always kept in mind that although according to the saying, noblesse oblige, but at least as much, and rather far more, than nobility: GÉNIE OBLIGE (Genius obliges)!” Thus wrote Ferenc Liszt about Paganini in 1840, and he himself was an example to posterity of what talent demands of an artist: above all else, the sharing of talent with the world. The new series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre offers every half year the opportunity to several students or ensembles of the Liszt Academy to present themselves to a wider audience. On this occasion the general public have the chance to see Mihály Demeniv. This youthful artist, student of László Ernyei at the Liszt Academy, overwhelmed jury and public alike with his virtuosity and musicality to win at the Lanciano International Accordion Competition in 2013. Just as then, so to here he selects from a repertoire spanning 300 years. Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: NKA

BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA PERÉNYI – SCHUMANN Robert Schumann: ‘Zwickau’ Symphony in G minor Cello Concerto in A minor, op. 129 Symphony No. 4 in D minor, op. 120 Miklós Perényi (cello) Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Conductor: Domonkos Héja Domonkos Héja, founding conductor of the Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, returns to his ensemble for this recital. One of the foremost of the young Hungarian conductor generation, he spent six years (2005–2011) at the opera house of Chemnitz in Germany as chief conductor. The Saxony town lies barely 40 km from Zwickau, birthplace of Robert Schumann. It was here that the German composer wrote his unfinished youthful symphony, which bears strong resemblances to Beethoven’s style and of which concert hall performances are extremely rare. Schumann’s world is full of conundrums with its literary and personal connections and music history references; moreover, his music is extremely exciting from other aspects: the works are interspersed with a complicated motif network. It is as though Symphony No. 4 in D minor is a masterful exposition of a single concept, though one of his ‘later’ creations, the Cello Concerto in A minor, composed when he was 40, follows a similar principle. It would be hard to think of a person better suited to perform the solo part of this latter work than two-time Kossuth Prize-winner Miklós Perényi. Tickets: HUF 2 700, 3 500, 4 200, 4 900 Organizer: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Kft.

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SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY, 19.00

MONDAY 9 FEBRUARY, 19.00

SOLTI HALL

FOUR BY FOUR BRODSKY QUARTET Schubert: String Quartet Movement (D. 703) Beethoven: String Quartet in C-sharp minor, op. 131 Zemlinsky: String Quartet No. 2, op. 15 Brodsky Quartet: Daniel Rowland, Ian Belton (violin); Paul Cassidy (viola) Jacqueline Thomas (cello)

BRODSKY QUARTET

JAZZ IT! THE IMPOSSIBLE GENTLEMEN Gwilym Simcock (piano) Mike Walker (guitar) Steve Rodby (bass) Adam Nussbaum (drums)

The unfinished String Quartet in C minor conveys particularly intensively the change in the composer’s style; it appears to be a workshop piece which has a direct relation with Schubert’s greatest quartets. Interestingly, after the String Quartet in C minor Schubert had nothing to do with the genre for years, and it is likely that his interest was once again sparked by Ignaz Schuppanzigh, the number one performer and devotee of Beethoven’s quartets, among them the later pieces that include the C-sharp minor quartet. Beethoven’s late string quartets became the origin of modern music, since at the beginning of the 20th century it inspired Schoenberg, Bartók and Zemlinsky. The first string quartet of the last-mentioned composer won the praise of Brahms, while the second quartet written nearly two decades later unequivocally nailed its colours to the mast of Vienna Modernism. The work was dedicated to his friend and son-inlaw Arnold Schoenberg. All these works will be performed by one of the most significant formations of English string quartet tradition, the legendary Brodsky Quartet, established in 1972 and now past their two thousandth performance.

“A four-way marriage made in heaven.” This is how British online jazz site Jazz Breakfast sees The Impossible Gentlemen, one of the most exciting jazz quartets currently performing. The line-up, which spans the Atlantic and generations, is indeed impressive: Steve Rodby, living American legend, plays bass (he was a member of the Pat Metheny combo for 30 years); the less well known yet equally busy and acknowledged American musician Adam Nussbaum is on drums (he was a key member of the rhythm section of the Gil Evans Orchestra); keyboards is taken by the young titan Gwilym Simcock, who has quickly found himself being called one of the greatest British jazz pianists of the 21st century, a person who is equally at home in classical music; while Mike Walker, the most dazzling jazz performer in the UK, plays guitar. Their music combines countless different influences, from Keith Jarrett to Pat Metheny and John Scofield, not to mention the classics. Their third album is due for release in 2015, and as one might conjecture from what has been said, it is not uncommon to find that the energy they release on stage during their concerts is close to explosive.

Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

THE IMPOSSIBLE GENTLEMEN

QUARTETS AS SPECTACLE Though even today there is professional agreement that the string quartet recital is the most intimate of genres, it has become increasingly common for quartets to perform in classical music venues across the globe before audiences measured in thousands. “I may regret saying this, but I'm convinced that today the quartet remains an intimate salon genre. But it has become so fashionable that often what it has to say has got lost. We are witnessing a spiritual dilution,” says András Keller, founder of the world famous Keller Quartet. Now leader of Concerto Budapest, Keller maintains this belief, even though back in the mid-nineties his quartet was one of the first to appear in the monumental Royal Albert Hall with its five-thousand-seat capacity. Although star status in classical music is hardly a new phenomenon, it was primarily soloists and conductors who were in the limelight. It is hard to imagine the fantastic Busch Quartet from the 1920s advertising themselves with giant placards and internet videos, and not just because such media did not exist in their time. And yet opera singers such as Maria Callas and conductors like Arturo Toscanini were more or less constant features in the press and newsreels, as much as film stars or politicians were at the time. The Amadeus Quartet, the Quartetto Italiano, the Tátrai String Quartet, and later the quartets led by Gábor Takács-Nagy and András Keller did not stimulate significant media interest even though the professional press showered them with superlatives for their performances. Their concerts were major public events across the globe. “Our concerts depended on the success of our previous concert, not on how we presented ourselves,” said András Keller. The changing trend was demonstrated recently when the New York Times published a photo of the Danish String Quartet in a style that would have befitted a rock band. According to the American critic Corinna da FonesceWollheim, who wrote the accompanying article, string quartets are now “hip” and that a new era has arrived: the Danish Quartet is passionate, dynamic and, not least, extremely good looking. She also claimed that they are to classical music what the Beatles were to light music. To be sellable, it is felt by many that a certain ‘optical tuning’ is indispensable, yet this makes many suspect the worst when they see increasing numbers of groups conquering concert halls, these often comprising good-looking young women. It seems that these days, groups are no longer expected to have the basic stability of members which has always been one of the fundamental hallmarks of the quartet genre: the sense radiating from the performance that the interpretation has its foundations in the members having played together for decades. “It is not true that dilettantes are taking to the stage; in fact quite the opposite, the new formations are characterised by an unbelievably high level of technical accomplishment. But by the 26

same token, ever fewer have their own unmistakable individual voice,” says András Keller. Just two decades ago, only a few dozen string quartets toured globally, and these were the ones with the serious recording contracts. Changing a member was regarded as a real tragedy, risking repercussions at the next performance, given the loyalty of the audience. Promoters would often write off a group that had changed its line-up. András Keller says that in earlier days, a quartet was only regarded as authentic if its members had played together for decades. He adds that the leader of the popular Cherubini Quartet, Cristoph Poppen, complained to him that during the course of their career they had to change members on three occasions, and that, on each occasion, the new musician was better than the one that had left. And yet their concert career as a group suffered each time. In the infinitely snobbish world of classical music, it is not just subjectivity that is the cause of real musical performance going astray. Numerous orchestral musicians are forming their own string quartets, independently of whether there is a demand for them. It seems that this, to quote the famously vitriolic Norman Lebrecht, is some sort of instinctive reflex. Amid such intense market competition, there are few true opportunities for musicians to be able to neglect the impact of their looks. This is why outside street performances and alternative venues beyond the concert hall have become indispensable components of a string quartet's concert career. “When I was young and short of cash, I played in a subway in London because I needed money. A single movement from Bach's B minor partita was enough to stop traffic in Piccadilly Circus,” recalls András Keller. According to Lebrecht himself, there is no benefit in four fantastic musicians sitting down together if they cannot create a shared cast of mind. Without it, nothing will come of their chamber music making. Groups that make music to a high technical level but play for effect and without sincere expression may attract an audience for a few years. But until now, no quartet has been able to enjoy a long career if it did not have personality. Tamás Vajna

TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY, 19.30

WEDNESDAY 11 FEBRUARY, 19.30

GRAND HALL

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO RAMIN BAHRAMI PIANO RECITAL D. Scarlatti: Aria in D minor (K. 32) D. Scarlatti: Sonata in G major (K. 289) J. S. Bach: French Suite in G major (BWV 816) D. Scarlatti: Sonata in D major (K. 282) J. S. Bach: English Suite in A minor (BWV 807) D. Scarlatti: Sonata in F-sharp major (K. 319) D. Scarlatti: Sonata in D major (K. 278) D. Scarlatti: Sonata in G major (K. 159) J. S. Bach: Aria variata alla maniera italiana (BWV 989) J. S. Bach: Italian Concerto (BWV 971)

Mendelssohn: String Symphony in B minor Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in D minor Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen, op. 20 (string orchestra arrangement) Sarasate: Jota Navarra, op. 22 (string orchestra arrangement) Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence, op. 70 (string orchestra arrangement) Ning Feng (violin) Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra (artistic director: János Rolla)

Born in Iran, Ramin Bahrami is one of the most significant Bach performers of our age. Nothing better reveals his dedication and the profundity of his mission than the fact that in 2004, at the age of 28, he recorded one of the most complex pieces in keyboard literature, the Goldberg Variations, and then just three years later The Art of Fugue, a Bach work that is even more intense. Bahrami completed his musical studies at the conservatoire in Milan (he was a child when, for political reasons, he left Teheran), and he then took part in several master classes, including courses given by András Schiff, Charles Rosen and Robert Levin, while he says that in a spiritual and artistic sense he received the most from the legendary Rosalyn Tureck. His concert in the Liszt Academy features popular pieces by his favourite composer and a rarely performed youthful Aria variata, alongside sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, born in the very same year as Bach.

The justifiably world renowned Ning Feng, soloist for this concert, is a remarkable musical personality, and one who has performed in Hungary on several occasions. Rather than the classical works, this Chinese violinist prefers lesser–known compositions; so far he has recorded two albums with a major label: on one he performs Bartók’s Solo Sonata, and on the other he is heard in Kodály’s Duo – in other words, he enjoys a challenge. This time he takes on Mendelssohn’s virtually unknown ‘other’ violin concerto alongside Spanish violinist virtuoso Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen and a bravura piece from the Spanish Dances series. There is little need to introduce the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra. Since being founded under the aegis of the Liszt Academy in 1963, the ensemble have become a familiar sight on the domestic music scene. Over the past half century they have played with numerous world stars, including Isaac Stern, JeanPierre Rampal, Itzhak Perlman, Maurice André and Emanuel Pahud.

Tickets: HUF 3 000, 4 000, 5 000, 6 000, 8 000 Organizer: Jakobi Ltd.

Tickets: HUF 2 900, 4 200, 6 200, 7 900 Organizer: Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

Ramin Bahrami (piano)

RAMIN BAHRAMI © UGO DALLA PORTA

NING FENG & THE FRANZ LISZT CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

SATIRO, MEXICO (2002) © JOEL-PETER WITKIN / COURTESY CATHERINE EDELMAN GALLERY, CHICAGO

FRIDAY 13 FEBRUARY, 19.00

SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

PURE BAROQUE HARMONIA CAELESTIS BALÁZS MÁTÉ & AURA MUSICALE Corelli: Concerto grosso in G minor, op. 6/8 (‘Christmas’) Pál Esterházy: Three cantatas from Harmonia Caelestis Vivaldi: Cello Concerto in F major (RV 412) Händel: Gloria (HWV deest) J. S. Bach: Concerto for Three Violins in D major (BWV 1064R) J. S. Bach: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (BWV 51) Dora Pavlíkova (soprano), Éva Posvanecz (violin), László Paulik (violin), Balázs Máté (cello, artistic director); Aura Musicale

BALÁZS MÁTÉ

Founded in 1995, Aura Musicale are a truly exciting period performance ensemble from Hungary. Their artistic director is Balázs Máté, who is the first cellist of Jordi Savall, Mark Minkowski and numerous other ‘early music’ big guns. Their repertoire embraces not only masterpieces from the Baroque age but also numerous discoveries. True to their creed, their concert programme features both hits and rarely heard masterpieces: Corelli’s ‘Christmas’ concerto and a cello concerto by Vivaldi (with soloist Balázs Máté), a popular Bach cantata employing a soprano solo, as well as Gloria, a work attributed to Händel and discovered in 2001. Dora Pavlíkova, one of the rising stars of Czech opera, sings in the latter two works and in the three cantatas from the Prince Pál Esterházy series Harmonia caelestis. The concert borrows its name from this series, but in fact all the works in this recital are characterized by ‘celestial harmony’. Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

ÁDÁM GYÖRGY PIANO RECITAL Chopin: Mazurka in A minor, op. 17/4 Chopin: Mazurka in C-sharp minor, op. 6/2 Chopin: Nocturne in C minor, op. 48/1 Chopin: Etude in G-flat major, op. 10/5 Chopin: Etude in A minor, op. 25/11 Chopin: Etude in C-sharp minor, op. 10/4 Liszt: Rigoletto paraphrase Improvisations Ádám György (piano) Years ago he became known in Hungary as the ‘unknown pianist’; in 2007 he conquered Carnegie Hall and then in the following year countless major concert halls; in 2012 three hundred million people heard him perform at the opening ceremony of the UEFA football championship in Poland. Ádám György graduated from the Liszt Academy as a student of György Nádor and Balázs Réti, and last appeared on the stage of the Academy before its renovation. In the first half of the concert he performs pieces by Chopin, then after the intermission one of the most popular Liszt works, the Rigoletto paraphrase, before improvising on popular themes. Tickets: HUF 2 900, 3 900, 4 900, 5 900, 6 900, 7 900, 9 900, 19 000 Organizer: Broadway Ticket Hungary Kft.

SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY, 20.00

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY, 19.30

MONDAY 16 FEBRUARY, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

GRAND HALL SÁNDOR BALASSA COMPOSER’S RECITAL Sándor Balassa: ‘A Bouquet’, op. 122 Two Works for Piano, op. 137 Fantasia for Piano, op. 97 Fantasia for Harp and String Orchestra, op. 76 String Quartet No. 4, op. 135 (premiere) Bölcskei Concerto, op. 49

IN MEDIAS BRASS QUINTET Shostakovich: Satirical Dances László Dubrovay: Brass Quintet No. 3 Szokolay: Three Funny Miniatures, op. 90 Bernstein: Dance Suite Anthony Plog: Four sketches for brass quintet – 2nd movement Armand Kautzky (actor) In Medias Brass: Richárd Kresz, Antal Endre Nagy (trumpet); János Benyus (horn); Attila Sztán (trombone); József Bazsinka Jnr. (tuba)

ON THE SPOT THE STRINGS DEPARTMENT Works by Bach, Ligeti, Ysaÿe, Sarasate, Dohnányi, Kodály, Paganini and Hindemith

Andrea Vigh (harp); Sándor Falvai (piano); Zoltán Bánfalvi, Réka Matuska, Ferenc Szecsődi, Erzsébet Farkas (violin); Levente Fülöp (viola); Béla Bánfalvi Jnr., Györgyi Kőrösi (cello); New Hungarian Chamber Orchestra (artistic director: Béla Bánfalvi); Conductor: Zoltán Kovács

In 2010, the very year of their foundation, In Medias Brass carried home every possible prize on offer from the South Korean Jeju International Brass Competition. Since this time they have gone on to win many more first and grand prizes, most recently in 2013 at the Calvin Smith Competition in Knoxville, USA. The ensemble comprises former students of the Liszt Academy, all of whom play the brass repertoire – as well as many other things in the form of arrangements – with breathtaking virtuosity and lightness of touch. Their Liszt Academy appearance sees them insert catchy 20th-century musical miniatures alongside one-minute novellas by István Örkény, which here are read by Armand Kautzky. Pál Göttinger, Junior Prima Prize director, oversees the literarymusic extravaganza.

The next in the ‘On the Spot’ series, which introduces the departments and workshops of the Liszt Academy, turns the spotlight on the strings department. Violin and cello have been taught at the Academy since the earliest days in 1875, the violin faculty founded by Jenő Hubay and the latter by Dávid Popper. Throughout the 20 th century the two faculties turned out – with the later addition of viola and double bass classes – a fabulous array of world-famous string players: Ede Zathureczky, József Szigeti, Zoltán Székely, Sándor Végh and Dénes Kovács, to name but a few of the illustrious former students and professors, all of whom contributed to the tradition of Hungarian string performance in their own way. The concert by the department, currently headed by Kossuth-laureate Miklós Szenthelyi, selects from the past 300 years of the strings genre.

This concert, which hails Sándor Balassa on the occasion of his 80 th birthday, showcases the second half – dating from the early 1990s to the present day – of the extremely rich and varied oeuvre of the composer: the recently completed String Quartet No. 4 is a world premiere. Balassa entered this composition into the works catalogue as opus 135 not at all bothered by the shadow cast by Beethoven’s similarly numbered opus, the last he completed, a string quartet (in F major) raising the drama of human existence into the sublime. Of the composer’s exquisite chamber compositions from the past few years, wrote one critic: “There is something essential without the strident rhetoric of coming to the essence. Essential, pure musically expressed works.” It is exceptional to find the genre of harp concerto on the programme of a contemporary concert. “I was always attracted to the sound of the harp,” the composer confessed. “It is a special phenomenon in modern-day music”.

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 900 Organizer: In Medias Brass

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 700, 2 800, 3 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Miklós Szenthelyi, Vilmos Szabadi, Péter Bársony (viola), Csaba Onczay (cello) and their students

THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY, 19.30

FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY, 19.30

GRAND HALL

FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY, 21.00 SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY, 21.00

SOLTI HALL

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC ISTVÁN PÁL ‘SZALONNA’ & HIS BAND “ON THE ROAD”

MR MUSIC ENSEMBLES

Eszter Pál (vocals); István Pál ‘Szalonna’ (violin); Tamás Gombai (violin); Gyula Karacs (viola); Sándor Ürmös (cimbalom); Attila Gera (wind instruments); Róbert Doór (bass); Traditionalist first violinists from Transylvania and Hungary Dancers: Dezső Fitos, Enikő Kocsis (Fitos Dezső Company), Kristóf Fundák, Lili Kaszai (winners of Fölszállott a páva), Richárd Kökény, Henrietta Maksa (Hungarian State Folk Ensemble) Guest musicians: Balázs Unger (Cimbaliband), Zsolt Barcza (Csík orchestra), Lajos Pál, László Kelemen

Zita Váradi, Krisztina Jónás (soprano); Atala Schöck (alto); László Kálmán (tenor); Thomas Šelc (baritone) Krisztián Cser (bass); MR Choir MR Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Zoltán Pad

Händel: Israel in Egypt

‘Szalonna and his band’ celebrate the 10th anniversary of their formation with an ambitious programme. The formation, which came about as accompanists for the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble, weave their two-act session around three important concepts. The first is the inseparable link between folk dance and folk music. The second concept can be summarized as ‘masters and role models’. The third important reflection is the family, which binds the two aforementioned concepts and serves as a strong background and motivation. Parents and siblings make music together as a 21st-century paraphrase of the old practice of passing on traditions. No doubt the small boy from the Sub-Carpathians watching lead violinists with sparkling eyes has come a long way, as the title of the concert suggests. But it is also clear that the road has not ended. We look forward to its continuation. Happy Birthday!

The same Charles Jennens who created the libretto for Messiah compiled, from Biblical scripts, the oratorio libretto for Israel in Egypt on the commission of Händel. He composed the work in a month, according to his own tempo in the autumn of 1738, and in the following season the premiere of this (alongside Saul) was the outstanding event within music circles. However, in contrast to its accompanying piece, it did not garner unanimous praise among the contem-porary English audience, probably due to its preponderance of choral movements. Although Händel created a version awash in Italian arias, the work’s remarkable popularity in the 19th century lay in these same choral movements. The monu-mental composition, which sets to music the exodus of the chosen people from Egypt, paints with unparalleled ingenuity the Seven Plagues and describes a captivating arc from the first part, which mourns Joseph, to the third part, which celebrates the deliverance of the Jews. The work is performed by selected soloists and the ensembles of Hungarian Radio and Television under the baton of Zoltán Pad. He has been principal choirmaster of the Hungarian Radio and Television Choir since 2013.

Tickets: HUF 1 400, 2 100, 3 500, 4 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 000, 4 000 Organizer: MR Music Ensembles

FRENCH LATE NIGHT Saint-Saëns: La princesse jaune Bizet: Djamileh Kornélis: Péter Balczó Léna: Zita Szemere Djamileh: Zsófia Kálnay Harun: Gergely Boncsér Hungarian State Opera Orchestra Conductor: Géza Köteles In the wake of last season’s highly successful Mozart Late Night series for adults, here follows a highly sensual performance by the Hungarian State Opera in the Liszt Academy’s renewed Sir Georg Solti Chamber Hall, which has recently regained its operatic function. In a single evening we can see two rarely performed 19th-century one-act plays, two works which premiered in the same season at the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1872. La princesse jaune by Camille Saint-Saëns rode the then fashionable wave of Japonism. The work revolves around the romance of a student Kornélis, who is in love with a Japanese girl, and his cousin Léna, who is attracted to him. In this there is a magical and extremely erotic dream scene when the student recognizes Léna in his Japanese lover. Georges Bizet’s Djamileh is similarly flavoured with exoticism and eroticism. The piece is about an Egyptian prince and his slave girl, who is in love with him. The two works are played by young opera singers. Tickets: HUF 2 800, 4 200 Organizer: Hungarian State Opera, Liszt Academy Concert Centre

FOLK MUSIC AND THE STAR INDUSTRY Why do we shudder when we come across the term folk diva amid the daily blizzard of PR? Why do we sense dissonance when we see a Folk musician promoted as a star performer? The reason is an arbitrary and – let us be excused – spontaneous association. Folk music originally enjoyed its own special function, embedded in its original environment and closed community. When the urban intelligentsia began to study THE folklore phenomena (including peasant music) towards the end of the 19th century, they could not help but imbue its unconscious processes with significant meaning. This should not have been surprising, because in their ears they could hear the sweetly naive voices of romanticism with its stereotypes of folk culture. The inhabitants of remote villages were presented as conscious custodians of ancient values who were sending messages to our rotten society from the past.

The situation is now quite different, or so we might think. Communities “languishing” in cultural self-sufficiency have broken up, and the revival movement has successfully mopped up the final crumbs of folklore and moved them to the haven of the urban environment. We know that the community-forming power of folklore is limited because it did not resist the coming of the railway, and Hungarian grandparents had no qualms removing their folk costumes in their modern plastic homes. We also know that folk music was not written down – it bypassed literacy – rather, it was traditionally passed from mouth to mouth. But we still have not liberated ourselves from that romantic picture mentioned above. We must recognise that, after numerous intellectual precursors, the dance house movement that began in the 1970s arbitrarily selected those cultural elements that could be transmitted into an urban environment. An attitude emerged that paired certain values to these extracted elements. Although they were true values, they also were selected through the prism of the urban intelligentsia's reveries of the past. The music industry, which is profoundly urban in character and churns out stars, operates according to a quite different set of rules: it continually seeks novel influences, it promulgates fashion, it creates trends, and it is profit oriented. Brand building – or in old fashioned terms, orchestra building – requires suitably exhibitionistic ‘front office’ people, as well as ‘back office’ people who are responsible for quality but are largely anonymous amid the eternal media storm. This model massively simplifies the operation of cultural space and tends to be exclusive with regard to performers. Suddenly, at the end of the 20 th century, we found folk music wrenched from its original environment and placed in this market. We can sense what conceptual contrasts are bristling against each other! Collective creation versus intentional composition, functionality versus entertainment, natural variation versus waves of fashion. This external tension is paired with an internal power that touches every artist. So perhaps it is understandable that ‘folk music’, used as a synonym of constant and unshakable value, perhaps feels a bit contrived in this new territory. But we trust that in the more relaxed brushwork of a fresh generation it paints a purer picture of the future. Mátyás Bolya

CONCERTO ARMONICO BUDAPEST (10 OCTOBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA

TAMÁS VÁSÁRY (5 NOVEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA

HOLLAND BAROQUE SOCIETY (21 SEPTEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA 34

KÁTYA TOMPOS & GÓBÉ BAND (21 NOVEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / LÁSZLÓ MUDRA

ERZSÉBET SELELJO (5 OCTOBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA

AEC CONFERENCE AT LISZT ACADEMY (14 NOVEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ISTVÁN FAZEKAS 35

SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY, 15.30

SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY, 19.30

MONDAY 23 FEBRUARY, 19.30

GRAND HALL

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO FAZIL SAY PIANO RECITAL

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST Mendelssohn: Elijah, op. 70 Veronika Geszthy (soprano) Lúcia Megyesi Schwartz (alto) Zoltán Megyesi (tenor) István Kovács (bass) King Stephen Oratorio Chorus Zugló Philharmonics Budapest Conductor: Alexander Mayer The oratorio Elijah is both a Baroque religious work and Romantic concert hall music piece. Asides the unquestionable influence of Bach and Händel, the work is made clearly Romantic in its orchestration, the handling of the choral tones and the pervasive lyricism. The fact that Mendelssohn composed the soprano part for his intimate friend Jenny Lind, known as the ‘Swedish nightingale’, is also an indication of the sentimentality of the piece. Many criticized Mendelssohn for the abyss separating true puritan ecclesiastical music and his own rapturous music. Although it is possible to dispute exactly how authentically ‘religious’ Elijah is, there is no doubt that the piece is unique in the way Mendelssohn transforms a concert hall into a church with his devout, sublime, expressive music. The various Biblical images are vividly depicted. Alexander Mayer conducts the Zugló Philharmonics Budapest and King Stephen Oratorio Chorus. The youthful musician, known for his premieres of contemporary works and innovative crossover projects, is senior conductor and music director in Lausanne and Neuchâtel. Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 100, 2 900 Organizer: Zugló Philharmonics Budapest 36

CONCERTO BUDAPEST & UMZE CHAMBER ENSEMBLE Zsolt Durkó: Ludus Stellaris Árpád Solti: Nudes András Szőllősy: Addio – Georgii Kroó in memoriam Sándor Veress: Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (Hungary premiere)

Mozart: Sonata in C minor (K. 457) Mozart: Sonata in C major (K. 330) Fazıl Say: Piano Sonata, op. 52 (‘Gezi Park II’) Fazıl Say: Ses Fazıl Say: Nâzim Fazıl Say: Kara Toprak – Hommage à Aşık Veysel, op. 8 Fazıl Say: Sait Faik Fazıl Say: Nietzsche und Wagner, op. 49 Fazıl Say (piano)

András Keller (violin), Keller Quartet Concerto Budapest, UMZE Chamber Ensemble Conductor: Zoltán Rácz The first part of this Concerto Budapest and UMZE Chamber Orchestra concert deals with visual experiences transformed into music. Zsolt Durkó’s composition Ludus stellaris is a sound projection of the constellation, while the grand orchestral Nudes by Árpád Solti could also serve as a guided tour of a museum. The latter – hiding Liszt references in its material – begins at French Realism and arrives at Surrealism via Impressionism. The second half of the concert is given over to two moving works from the final creative periods of András Szőllősy and Sándor Veress. Both works engage in a lively dialogue with music history and the mature Baroque and First Viennese School traditions: Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra is an experiment in the synthesis of the genres typical of these two periods.

Turkish pianist and composer Fazıl Say is an elemental phenomenon. His piano touch stands comparison with the greatest: it is a combination of precision, refinement and power that gives him an incomparable sound, and this is complemented by a technical superiority that enables him to overcome the most incredible of challenges. On top of that, his imagination as a composer has had a fertile impact on his piano playing. He is a regular guest at all the top concert halls, from Carnegie Hall to Concertgebouw and venues in Japan; his diary as a composer is similarly packed with bookings. His concert at the Liszt Academy starts with two Chopin sonatas, followed by his own works, including the composition Kara Toprak (‘Black Earth’), which laid the foundations of his fame as a composer. As a composer Fazıl Say is – as he is as a performance artist – omnivorous: Romantic elements, jazz, Turkish folk music and various avant-garde techniques are all to be discerned in his pieces.

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 000, 3 500 Organizer: Concerto Budapest, UMZE Chamber Ensemble

Tickets: HUF 4 000, 5 000, 6 000, 8 000, 10 000 Organizer: Jakobi Ltd.

A MAN OF CONTRASTS Turkish pianist Fazıl Say celebrates his forty-fifth birthday in January. He studied in Ankara, Düsseldorf and Berlin, before establishing his reputation in 1994 at the New York Young Concert Artists International Auditions, when he was placed first. He is a global performer and soloist with the world's leading orchestras. In 2008 he was chosen by the European Union to be an ambassador for intercultural dialogue. Fazil Say began composing at the age of fourteen and soon fashioned his own rich style with his highly imaginative use of jazz rhythms and sonorities in which Turkish folk music also plays an important role. His diary is filled with just as many commissions as a composer as concert engagements. Fazıl Say is a man of dualities and contrasts. He is a pianist and composer, and these two activities supplement and influence each other to their mutual benefit. In works with a jazz character, or those that offer the performer greater freedom (the works of Ravel and Gershwin, for example), Fay interprets them with surprising liberty, but when he plays classical compositions he demonstrates infinite discipline. He performs Beethoven's sonatas with taut tempos and relatively little pedal; he plays Mozart and Bach with an articulated, even non-legato. The rarefied simplicity of his pianism is coupled with elevated emotional empathy. Variations entice out the improvisatory spirit hidden in his soul, and in these pieces he often makes daring departures from what is written in the score. When the genre or period style does not permit departures of tempo, subtle reinterpretation of the order of stresses makes his piano playing unique: staccatos, daringly articulated crystal-clear scales and emphatic accents. He also loves exceptional contrasts in volume. His palette of dynamics extend from the most monumental fortes to breathless pianissimos, with a thousand and one shades in between. Fazıl Say's hands approach the keyboard quite unpredictably: one never knows what tone colours he will conjure from the instrument. But throughout one senses the incandescence and passion which perhaps manifests itself best in his own works. The elemental force that informs the jazzy virtuosity of his variations on Gershwin's Summertime, or his piano work for prepared piano Kara Toprak (‘Black Earth’) is perhaps Say's most individual musical calling card. He is one of those elemental musical geniuses whose performances are not just to be analysed and interpreted but simply experienced. Dániel Mona

Fazil Say 37

TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY, 19.30

WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY, 19.30

THURSDAY 26 FEBRUARY, 19.30

GRAND HALL

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC Mozart: Don Giovanni – overture Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D major Mozart: Mass in C minor (K. 427)

ORCHESTRA IN THE CENTRE VILDE FRANG & AMSTERDAM SINFONIETTA Grieg: From Holberg’s Time – suite in olden style, op. 40 Mozart: Violin Concerto in A major (K. 219) Grieg: Two elegiac melodies, op. 34 Janáček: String Quartet No. 1 ('Kreutzer') Vilde Frang (violin) Amsterdam Sinfonietta (artistic director: Terje Tønnesen) Norwegian Vilde Frang started out as a wunderkind. Incredibly, she was just ten when she debuted with Sarasate’s Carmen fantasia, partnering the Norwegian Radio Orchestra; just two years later she was playing in Oslo under the baton of Mariss Jansons. Since then she has been a partner of some of the most distinguished orchestras and conductors. As a true chamber musician she is a regular participant at festivals (Lockenhaus, Lucerne, Kaposfest); she has an exclusive contract with EMI record label, and in 2012 she was unanimously voted recipient of the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award. This world star appears for the first time at the Liszt Academy and plays Mozart’s popular Violin Concerto in A major, a piece featuring Turkish elements, accompanied by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta (founded in 1988), who themselves are one of the most sought-after string orchestras. Tickets: HUF 1 900, 3 100, 4 300, 5 400 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 38

Júlia Hajnóczy (soprano) Katalin Halmai (mezzo-soprano) Szabolcs Brickner (tenor) Krisztián Cser (bass) National Choir (choral director: Antal Mátyás) Hungarian National Philharmonic Conductor: Tamás Vásáry Mozart has been a constant companion of Tamás Vásáry. At the tender age of eight he played one of the piano concertos of the Salzburg-Vienna master; later he performed (with Annie Fischer) a Mozart concerto for two pianos; and he has conducted Mozart operas at the Aldeburgh Festival, London and Cambridge – as well as the opera of operas, Don Giovanni, in Seville, where the opera is set. He himself has said that if he were to be stranded on a desert island, he would take Mozart operas with him. This time the world famous pianist-conductor conducts works by the greats of the First Viennese School at the head of the Hungarian National Philharmonic. Following the overture and Haydn’s final symphony composed for London, the second half of the concert is devoted to Mozart’s unfinished, grandiose work. The Mass in C minor reveals the composer’s most profound music in this, a performance featuring the best oratorio singers of the day and a chorus directed by Mátyás Antal for 25 years. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 4 500, 6 000 Organizer: Hungarian National Philharmonic

ENDRE HEGEDŰS ORCHESTRAL PIANO RECITAL Mozart: Piano Concerto in D minor (K. 466) Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, op. 15 Endre Hegedűs (piano) Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok Conductor: Gábor Hollerung “I truly believe in what Saint Augustine said, that God gave man music to remind him of his spiritual home. I only have to do my job: I play on the piano as long as my hand and head can manage it.” Kossuth Prize-winner Endre Hegedűs (60 this year) thus formulated his ars poetica in an interview. For this recital he plays two piano concertos in D minor in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy: one of Mozart’s most dramatic pieces, the K. 466, which was of such importance for Beethoven; and the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, which was originally destined to be a symphony. Endre Hegedűs is accompanied by an old friend and music companion, Gábor Hollerung, at the head of the Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok. Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 500, 4 500 Organizer: Stúdió Liszt Ltd.

VILDE FRANG © MARCO BORGGREVE

“I LIVE THE PRIVILEGED LIFE OF THE WANDERER” We would like to introduce you to a young Norwegian girl who, when she was four, wanted to learn the double bass. And yet she ended up a violinist. When she was eleven, she was discovered by Anne-Sophie Mutter, and at twelve made her debut with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. She cannot abide competitions and yet travels the world with the finest orchestras and conductors. A conversation with Vilde Frang, who will be playing Mozart's Violin Concerto in A major with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta at the Liszt Academy.

What does Mozart mean for you? I think that Mozart wrote opera in all his works. When I play Mozart, I feel more that I am singing than playing the violin. Perhaps his violin concertos are not his most profound works, but they are still masterpieces and remarkably lovable. It is as though he simply put them down on paper with the greatest possible ease. But if I look at these works with the eye of a violinist, they appear extremely hard to play. If you approach Mozart's music vocally, his works transform totally and a different kind of art emerges. You frequently stress that “the greatest thing that we can do for someone is inspire them.” Many people would like to define the true nature of talent. In my understanding, it is a dual ability: to be able to inspire others and yet be able to allow others to inspire us. On the stage, I don't want to prove a point; I want to share something with the audience – to inspire people so they feel “yes, that is what I would like to do and I know that I am capable of it.” The greatest artists are always able to communicate this feeling. You have stated several times that other art forms are important to you. The Amsterdam Sinfonietta takes part in numerous exciting projects. Have you played together before? This is the first occasion that we will perform on stage together. But I have heard them: they are a fantastic orchestra and I am very much looking forward to working together. Developing relationships with other art forms is something I am very much attracted to. As a soloist, I am in an exceptional situation: I can travel the world. This takes up most of my time, so I live the life of a wanderer. But music is only a small part of the whole and I am very interested in painting, photography, dance, opera. I'd like to cross boundaries and discover concealed territories behind them. There are several great artists who play classical music superbly but who also forge relationships with other art forms. For example Yo-Yo Ma, who makes music with Bobby McFerrin, then travels to Argentina to play tango, then he is off to China… This variety is perhaps sometimes frightening, but I think that it is gratifying to be always confronted with new challenges. You were a child prodigy. How did that affect your career? You naturally need talent and musical sensitivity for success, but it depends very much on timing: it is important to be in the right place at the right time. It was a huge step in my life when, as a youngster from Norway, I ended

up in Germany, where I could develop with the support of Anne-Sophie Mutter. I played for her first when I was eleven, just before her performance as a guest of the Bergen Festival in Norway. We parted with her asking me to write letters to her and send recordings so she could follow my development. I learned a huge amount from her; she encouraged me never to copy her in any way, not to be the product of her school, but to listen to my inner voice and try to be myself. I also owe her for my instrument, a Vuillaume violin which I received on loan from her foundation over ten years ago, but which now I own. I have a unique relationship with my violin. From the beginning we argued a lot, we fought each other, because neither of us are perfect. We developed together, we constantly formed and shaped each other. Despite the struggles I am happier with this instrument than I would be if had to play on a perfect violin. In 2012, you won the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award. What do you think of competitions? It depends very much on what sort of personality you are. In my case, the Credit Suisse is the only competition that I won. Much earlier, after reaching the final of the Eurovision Competition, I decided that I would never enter competitions again. I sense that competitions were not invented with me in mind; if I can, I will avoid them. There are artists who have a tailor-made talent for the competitive environment, but I am not one of them. At competitions truly musical considerations count for less, generally speaking, and a great deal depends on who is sitting on the jury. This is not the first time you have come to Hungary. You have played at the Kaposfest on a number of occasions. Besides the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, the Kaposfest is my favourite festival. The artists and audiences communicate with each other there in a unique manner and create an unbelievably easy mood that cannot be experienced anywhere else: it unleashes exceptional energies. I am a regular guest of the festival and one reason for this is that Hungary has a unique magic for me. It is like an imaginary country where you expect to see witches of some sorts flying in the sky. I am always extremely enthusiastic about Budapest; I was recently able to look down from the Citadella and it was a fantastic experience. Anna Belinszky

FRIDAY 27 FEBRUARY, 19.00

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CARNIVAL CONCERT SONG RECITALS AT THE LISZT ACADEMY KATALIN HALMAI & GÁBOR ALSZÁSZY SONG RECITAL NATURE AND LOVE Songs by Robert Franz and Peter Cornelius Katalin Halmai (mezzo-soprano) Gábor Alszászy (piano)

KATALIN HALMAI

Dvořák: Carnival Overture, op. 92 Khachaturian: Masquerade – suite Farkas: Mátra Dances Britten: Soirée Musicales, op. 9 Kacsóh–Dénes: János vitéz – suite István Dénes: Nokia Waltz Bernstein: Divertimento Piazzolla: Milonga del Angel Anderson: Fiddle faddle, Sleigh Ride, Jazz pizzicato, The Typewriter István Dénes: Radetzky-ykztedaR

The concert programme showcases songs by Robert Franz, who was a contemporary of Schumann, and Peter Cornelius, who belonged to the Wagner generation. Franz, with his near 300 songs, is a key composer of the German Lied genre; his art was admired by both Liszt and Wagner, who similarly respected Peter Cornelius. Cornelius himself wrote the lyrics to half of his almost 100 songs and he experimented extensively with special effects. Without exception, pieces at this concert revolve around nature and love, with performers who are expert interpreters of the genre. Katalin Halmai is professor of solo singing at the Liszt Academy. She has been soloist of the Vienna Staatsoper from 1995, she has worked together with the most important conductors of our time (Rilling, Norrington, Blomstedt), and she regular attends festivals. She is accompanied on the piano by Gábor Alszászy, who also teaches at the Liszt Academy, department of vocal studies, as a répétiteur.

MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: István Dénes

Tickets: HUF 1 300, 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

MÁV Symphony Orchestra and István Dénes have put together a kaleidoscopic programme for the carnival season. Dvořák’s dizzyingly rapid Carnival Overture is followed by a confetti shower of numbers: dances of various folk cultures from the workshops of Armenian Khachaturian, Hungarian Ferenc Farkas and Englishman Benjamin Britten, after which the audience hears a few extracts of Pongrác Kacsóh’s János vitéz in an arrangement by István Dénes, rounded off by works by American composers from the boundary between classical and pop music. Conductor István Dénes graduated from the Liszt Academy in 1977; he is the conductor of the Hungarian State Opera and regularly conducts ensembles in Germany. He is also active as a composer, as shall be evidenced from his extremely witty pieces, the Nokia Waltz and an arrangement of the Radetzky March.

ENTRY IN THE GUEST BOOK OF LISZT ACADEMY ISABELLE FAUST & HEINZ HOLLIGER (27 OCTOBER 2014)

SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY, 19.30

SUNDAY 1 MARCH, 11.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

MIKLÓS PERÉNYI & BUDAPEST STRINGS Mozart: Cassation in G major (K. 63) Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 2 in D major (Hob. VIIb:2) Beethoven: Septet in E-flat major, op. 20 (orchestral version) Miklós Perényi (cello) Budapest Strings Conductor: Péter Csaba Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven – the immortal trio. The contemporary audiences of these three greats did not even know the concepts of ‘classical’ and ‘pop’ music; thus we find classical elements even in such open-air entertainment as Cassation, which flowed from the pen of a 13-year-old Mozart. Similarly, Haydn’s violoncello concerto, which was composed for the court of Prince Esterházy, was written with the aim of providing its audiences with food for thought. We hear the Haydn masterpiece from the instrument of Hungary’s current number one cellist. The Septet of the third First Viennese School master, which was originally scored for strings and wind instruments, was written in a similarly light-hearted vein; it was considered one of the most popular of the composer’s works at the time of its genesis. Numerous contemporary transcriptions were made from it, though the one we hear tonight is considerably later and associated with Arturo Toscanini. This programme of superb music is performed by the Budapest Strings, who have for decades nurtured the memory of Haydn at Eszterháza. The concert is led by internationally renowned violinistconductor Péter Csaba, music director of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 4 000, 5 000 Organizer: Budapest Strings 44

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS OPERA DIRECTOR FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS Excerpts from operas by Mozart Students of the Department of Vocal Studies, Liszt Academy Artistic director and narrator: András Almási-Tóth What is a viola doing in the orchestra if it rarely gets a melody and it does not play the bass either? Why is a conductor needed when sometimes the orchestra gets along fine without him? What is the role of the score in classical music when many music cultures (folk music, jazz, Gregorian, etc.) managed and still manage without it? What do opera directors do and would they be missed by the singers and audience if they were not there? The Liszt Academy series for young people seeks answers to these and many other questions. On this the first occasion of the series the head of the Liszt Academy opera department, András Almási-Tóth, introduces children to the mysteries of opera directing. Through a variety of stage realizations of parts of Mozart operas we glimpse behind the scenes to see how an opera is actually staged, and at the end of the day the conclusion, naturally, is that although plenty could be said about opera directors, certainly they could not be said to be superfluous. Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

ANDRÁS ALMÁSI-TÓTH © GÁBOR FEJÉR

SUNDAY 1 MARCH, 11.00

SUNDAY 1 MARCH, 18.00

TUESDAY 3 MARCH, 19.30

GRAND HALL

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST UNDERSTANDABLE MUSIC DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK MIHÁLY SZÉKELY Mozart: The Magic Flute (excerpts) Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok Lecturer and conductor: Gábor Hollerung

20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ST STEPHEN GRAMMAR SCHOOL JUBILEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Dvořák: Symphony No. 8 in G major, op. 88 Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16 Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Händel: Zadok the Priest (HWV 258) Kodály: Missa Brevis Arvo Pärt: Te Deum Zita Szemere, Katalin Vámosi, Orsolya Sapszon (soprano); Szilvia Vörös (alto); Péter Balczó (tenor); László Jekl (bass) Cantate Mixed Choir of the Kodály Zoltán Hungarian Choral School (choral director: Ferenc Sapszon), Gemma Vocal Ensemble (artistic director: Márton Tóth) Zugló Philharmonics Budapest Conductor: Ferenc Sapszon

Operatic legend has it that in 1957 the recently contracted young solo singer Miklós Molnár bumped into worldfamous bass Mihály Székely in the Opera’s staff buffet. The new recruit grabbed the opportunity and introduced himself. “I am Miklós Molnár,” he said modestly, “bass singer at the Opera.” Székely took the young man’s hand in a friendly way and in a stentorian voice said: “It may well be, young man, that you are Miklós Molnár, but I am the bass singer at the Opera.” In this series presenting world citizens of Hungarian music, Gábor Hollerung pays tribute to one of the most significant singers of the 20th century, an artist who not only earned himself a place among the immortals as Duke Bluebeard (he introduced himself in the role in 1936 on the instructions of the composer), but who also gave a legendary rendering of the most exalted bass role of all time: in the minds of several generations he is inextricable linked with Sarastro from Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Mónika Szabadfi (piano) St Stephen Grammar School Jubilee Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Gergely Ménesi When in 1994 celebrations were held to mark the 40th anniversary of the ‘Stephen Orchestra’, founded by the legendary József Záborszky, former members decided to set up the St Stephen Grammar School Jubilee Symphony Orchestra. The ensemble reflects the golden age of civil music culture as every member, without exception, has a civilian occupation and they only play in their free time. The exceptional enthusiasm characteristic of their concerts is not only due to the 'Stephen' tradition but also to the conductor, Gergely Ménesi, who has been active in local music circles for years. The concert programme features Liszt’s popular Rhapsody No. 2 and perhaps the most serene, most uplifting symphony by Dvořák, the Eighth, plus a Grieg piano concerto with solo by Mónika Szabadfi, who teaches the instrument at the St Stephen Grammar School.

The Choral School, founded by Ferenc Sapszon, combines the music pedagogy of Zoltán Kodály and the traditions of western European cathedral choral schools in a totally unique way. The opening work in this concert by the mixed choir of the school and the Zugló Philharmonics Budapest is a celebratory piece by Händel, composed in 1727 for the coronation of King George II. This is followed by Kodály’s intimate and solemn Missa brevis, which is considered the apotheosis of the composer’s ecclesiastical works. The closing Te Deum is a perfect example of the compositional style of contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, which has become known as tintinnabuli from the Latin for ‘bells’. Ferenc Sapszon, holder of the Hungarian Heritage Award, conducts the Cantate Mixed Choir of the Choral School, an ensemble that has achieved great results at international competitions, the Gemma Vocal Ensemble and Zugló Philharmonics Budapest.

Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 300, 2 700 Organizer: Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 2 700, 2 900, 3 200 Organizer: Partitúra Foundation

Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 100, 2 500 Organizer: Zugló Philharmonics Budapest 45

WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH, 19.00

WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH, 19.30

THURSDAY 5 MARCH, 19.00

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC ÚJ STÍLUS

BORIS BEREZOVSKY & FRANZ LISZT CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Új Stílus: András Berecz (vocals) Csaba Ökrös (violin) Balázs Vizeli (violin) Tamás Gombai (violin) Antal ‘Puma’ Fekete (viola) István Adorján (viola, folk wind instruments) Géza Pénzes (bass)

Wirén: String Serenade, op. 11 Chopin: Piano Concerto in F minor, op. 21 Schönberg: Verklärte Nacht, op. 4

FOUR BY FOUR ZEHETMAIR QUARTET

Boris Berezovsky (piano) Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra (artistic director: János Rolla)

Hindemith: String Quartet No. 5, op. 32 Mozart: String Quartet in A major (K. 464) Debussy: String Quartet

Once upon a time there was an orchestra which would have been thirty-five this year. An orchestra that never split up, but one that we don’t hear about these days. They were the first to play the finest pieces from the virtuoso repertoire of Feri Csipás, famed violinist from Kalotaszeg, thanks mainly to the superb technique of Csaba Ökrös. They chose the name of the orchestra when in 1983 they received an invitation from the US to make a recording. Their choice (in English ‘New Style’) refers to the new stylistic stratum of Kalotaszeg tunes. Although the image of the ensemble was basically determined by archaic Transylvanian string music, the name stuck. Csaba Ökrös was succeeded by other violinists: first by the outrageously young Balázs Vizeli, then by Tamás Gombai. Today we know Vizeli from the Kossuth Prize-winning Vujicsics band, and Gombai from Szalonna and his Band. The formation were joined by a new member in the mid-1980s, a singer who, contrary to the practice of orchestras playing folk music at that time (Muzsikás, Téka, Ökrös), was male. The intervening years have proven that the revolutionary decision was a correct one, because the new member was none other than András Berecz.

“I think I’m prepared in myself to be famous now. I’m glad it didn’t happen before.” These are the words of the pianist phenomenon, gold medallist in the 1990 Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition, Boris Berezovsky, ten years ago when he was 36. Schumann, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Balakirev – this brilliant pianist has recorded many of the major works of the Romantic piano canon, and in this style he certainly ranks among the greatest. This is particularly true of a work such as that composed by Chopin when just 20, the piano concerto of poetic depths but which occasionally demands extraordinary speed and flexibility, and which is – quite rightly – one of the most popular items on the concert repertoire. The programme opens with a work dating from 1937 written by the Swedish composer Dag Wirén, a name virtually unknown in Hungary, who was born 110 years ago. After the interval there is another special musical treat when we get to listen to the setting to music of a poem (Transfigured Night) composed by Arnold Schönberg in late Romantic style, which brings out the magical colours of the strings.

Zehetmair Quartet: Thomas Zehetmair, Kuba Jakowicz (violin); Ruth Killius (viola); Christian Elliot (cello)

Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 46

Tickets: HUF 3 500, 4 900, 6 900, 8 500 Organizer: Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

Rudolf Kolisch’s legendary quartet were perhaps the first whose members played their repertoire without sheet music, and this included Bartók and Schönberg string quartet works. Austrian Thomas Zehetmair, one of the most fascinating violinist personalities of our day, who is equally active as soloist and conductor, began his violin career at the age of 16, and only founded the string quartet 17 years later. True to the principle of Kolisch, they too perform all their works from memory. They learn a new programme every year with their focus on a far-from-easy 20 th century repertoire. Their Budapest concert features a youthful Debussy masterpiece, one of the glittering prizes of the First Viennese School; Mozart’s Quartet in A major (this was Beethoven’s favourite, indeed he himself made a copy of it); and a real rarity, Paul Hindemith’s String Quartet No. 5, a work rich in references to the history of music and scholarly compositional solutions, which the Amar Quartet (with Hindemith taking the viola part) performed in 1923, just three days after its completion. Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

ACROBAT When I first heard him in a recording, he was playing Bach, the solo sonatas, and I immediately sensed that he was not going to take his foot off the pedal. Many are able to give fine performances of these works, but the incandescence, effort and enthusiasm that I heard in his playing struck me as unique. I think it was his humanity that fascinated me. It was as though he was the embodiment of a kind of antithesis of Heifetz, whose extraterrestrial perfection tends to leave me a little cold: I had heard a mortal presenting the human hidden behind Bach's perfection, through his own self-lacerating, doubting, tortured being. The least interesting thing was how Thomas Zehetmair was playing the violin, although he was doing that superbly, needless to say.

Like Mozart, he was born in Salzburg. Like Mozart, he learned from his father, although he did say in an interview that “I did not find the violin quite as early as him. I was more than seven. But I began playing the piano at three.” Of course, it was the violin, the instrument taught by both parents that instantly became his prime passion. At the age of sixteen he began his career as a soloist, and for decades he worked as a partner of the very finest orchestras and conductors. His expressive playing and his visage that evoked expressionist paintings enchanted audiences at all points of the globe. He explored the Earth and also the entire solo repertoire. That was until 1994, when he decided to found a quartet. He had had enough of constantly having to explain things to musicians at rehearsals; he wanted it to be enough just to make music with his partners. For that, you have to arrive at rehearsals prepared to the ultimate degree. So they started playing pieces from memory. Whether or not they played with music was not so important, and for a while he would not allow to advertise their concerts as mere feats of memory. For them, playing from memory is not a fetish: if they sense it necessary, they bring out the score. But by playing this way, there is greater eye and ear contact in a concert; it allows for greater freedom and strengthens spontaneity. The Zehetmair Quartet is now one of the most important string quartets, open equally to the classical quartet repertoire and 20th century and contemporary works. In 2014 Hanau, the birthplace of Paul Hindemith, awarded them the Hindemith prize. The critics speak in superlatives about the quartet's recordings, while their concerts are major events in even the busiest concert halls. Over the last decade and a half, in addition to his career as a violinist and quartet player, he has also worked as a conductor. For twelve years he led the Royal Northern Sinfonietta, turning it into a world-class orchestra. He is the chief conductor of the Paris Chamber Orchestra and is frequently invited to work with leading ensembles. “When I conduct, I am one hundred percent a conductor,” he said about how he balances his activities. “When I am a soloist, I am one hundred percent a violinist; when I play in the string quartet, I am one hundred percent a quartet player.” And we can add that, in all three cases, he is also one hundred percent a musician. The composer and conductor Péter Eötvös said once that in his view every artist should take circus performers as their model. If an acrobat does not prepare perfectly for the performance, and they do not give it their utmost concentration, they risk their lives. Thomas Zehetmair makes music every moment as if he is risking his life. Gergely Fazekas

Thomas Zehetmair © KEITH PATTISON 47

FRIDAY 6 MARCH, 19.30

GRAND HALL

FRIDAY 6 MARCH, 21.00 SATURDAY 7 MARCH, 21.00

SATURDAY 7 MARCH, 17.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA BERLIOZ – MAGIC AND PASSION

VOICE, SO CLOSE HÄNDEL IN TRIPLICATE CONCERT AND CONVERSATION WITH GYÖRGY VASHEGYI

Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major, op. 103 Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

Georg Friedrich Händel: Brockes Passion (excerpts) L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (excerpts) Theodora (excerpts)

József Balog (piano) Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Conductor: Máté Hámori József Balog is talked of as being one of the most promising talents of the young pianist generation, someone who has already revealed his exceptional abilities at sensational concerts both here in Hungary and abroad. His recordings have also attracted a storm of praise. The artist, who turns 36 just a few days after this concert, has taken first or second place at seven competitions in nine years, occasions when he has been admired as a remarkable interpreter of primarily Romantic compositions, impressing audiences with unique intonation and extraordinary virtuosity. We can expect something remarkable when he performs the final piano concerto of Liszt student Camille Saint-Saëns, who wrote this exotic work on vacation in Egypt. The other two pieces in the programme are similarly by French artists, both works being the non plus ultra of orchestral interplay, a canvas of a stunning variety of orchestral tones, sounds and characters that recognizes no professional compromise. It is an area that the Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, under the baton of Máté Hámori, feel perfectly at home in, given that over the past more than 20 years they have surely and steadily become one of leading symphonic ensembles in Hungary. Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 200, 3 800, 4 700 Organizer: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Kft. 48

Students of the Vocal and Conducting Departments Liszt Academy Orchestra and Chorus (choral director: Csaba Somos) Conductor and narrator: György Vashegyi

Details on page 32.

György Vashegyi, one of the foremost figures in early music in Hungary, revives the tradition of Gesprächskonzert ('conversation concert') that is so popular in German-speaking areas, when he initiates the general public into the work he is conducting with students of the Liszt Academy during the academic year 2014–2015. The name of Vashegyi is associated with the premieres in Hungary of several Händel oratorios; there are few others in the country who know the works of the Halle master better, so young musicians received a unique opportunity when they work on three key Händel oratorios over several months. The concert covers excerpts from the relatively early Brockes Passion, and the L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740), based on the poetry of Milton, as well as the markedly operatic Theodora, presented from 1750. Once more, we are also able to learn a huge amount about these works from an expert.

Tickets: HUF 2 800, 4 200 Organizer: Hungarian State Opera, Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Free tickets can be requested from the Liszt Academy box office. Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

SUNDAY 8 MARCH, 19.30

TUESDAY 10 MARCH, 19.30

WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH, 19.30

GRAND HALL

MR MUSIC ENSEMBLES J. S. Bach: Mass in B minor (BWV 232)

JAZZ IT! THE FIRST 50 YEARS GALA CONCERT OF THE JAZZ FACULTY Featuring: Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, Imre Kőszegi, Balázs Berkes, Kornél Fekete Kovács, Gyula Babos, Attila László, Mihály Borbély, Tamás Berki, Kálmán Oláh, Kristóf Bacsó, Béla Lattman, Béla Zsoldos, Ágnes Lakatos, Barna Tibor Csuhaj, István Elek, Ákos Benkó, Elemér Balázs, György Regály, Sándor Horányi, Károly Binder, Tibor Fonay, János Hámori, Károly Friedrich, György Jeszenszky, Tibor Márkus and the best students from the Jazz Department Fifty years is a considerable period in music history terms. For example, the births of Johannes Brahms and Béla Bartók are separated by a half century, as are those of Thelonius Monk and John Medeski. When the ‘jazz department’ was formed under the aegis of the Bartók Conservatoire and the leadership of János Gonda in 1965, jazz had only recently been re-categorized from ‘forbidden’ to ‘tolerated’. It is no exaggeration to state that János Gonda and his colleagues, indeed later flag bearers (heads of department following on from the founder: Mihály Borbély, Károly Binder and their colleagues) acted in a historically significant way, since the most important figures in Hungarian jazz life today were all hatched from this jazz department. Now these artists take the opportunity to pay tribute to their alma mater in the frame of a unique jazz festival. Tickets: HUF 1 600 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: NKA 50

Beatrix Fodor, Melinda Heiter (soprano); Atala Schöck (alto); Zoltán Megyesi (tenor); István Kovács (bass) MR Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad) MR Symphony Orchestra Conductor: János Kovács Why did the foremost figure of Lutheran church music set to music the complete Ordinary of the Roman Catholic mass in his declining years? The probable answer is more prosaic than one would have thought. In the early 18th century Lutheran composers sometimes also held Catholic appointments, or they composed to the orders of Catholics (the early oratorios by Händel, for instance), and the latest research suggests that an Austrian Catholic count most likely commissioned the work from Bach. The hidden motive, however, was probably that Bach wanted to create a summary of his oeuvre in vocal music along the lines of his late summarizing works (The Art of Fugue, Goldberg Variations, Musikalisches Opfer), and there was no more suitable core material for this than the centuriesold text of the mass that had inspired music of the highest order in the Western artistic tradition. To put it simply, one could say that the Mass in B minor is, in essence, the composer’s ‘best of’ selection, which includes several earlier cantata movements and a few new movements (some of Bach’s final compositions) of fascinating density and profundity. This monumental work of European culture is performed by the Hungarian Radio and Television Music Ensembles and selected soloists under the baton of János Kovács. Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 000, 4 000 Organizer: MR Music Ensembles

BLACK AND WHITE COLOURS GERGELY BOGÁNYI AT THE LISZT ACADEMY J. S. Bach–Bogányi: Prelude in C major (BWV 545) Schubert: Four Impromptus (D. 899) Schumann: Fantasia in C major, op. 17 Gergely Bogányi (piano) As one of the most committed interpreters of Romantic piano works in Hungary, Gergely Bogányi proved – in the wake of his Chopin marathon in 2010 and a further marathon built on Liszt and Bach works in 2012 – that he also feels close to the works of the greatest Baroque master. Bach’s music has been important in the Kossuth Prize-winning pianist’s life right from the early days: his father regularly played works for organ by Bach on the piano at home, giving his son the pedal part. Since then Bogányi has been engaged in the performance on piano of Bach’s organ music. The Four Impromptus by Schubert follow the Prelude in C major. The compositions, which display bright flashes of moods and emotions, served as entertainment at home for the urban middle class of the age, and at the same time the glittering surface hides the most experimental moments of Schubert. The second half boasts Schumann’s Fantasy in C major, which originally paid tribute to the memory of Beethoven. The piece, which contains numerous references to Schumann’s own life, was later dedicated to Ferenc Liszt. Tickets: HUF 2 900, 4 100, 5 200, 6 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

THE JAZZ FACULTY TURNS FIFTY The Jazz Department at Liszt Academy is the direct successor of the Faculty established at Bartók Conservatory 50 years ago. János Gonda, Széchenyi prize winner music historian, Liszt prize winner pianist, professor of the Liszt Academy took on the task of summarizing the Faculty's history.

In 1965 the jazz faculty was created in the Béla Bartók Music College. This was more than the foundation of a new faculty: for the first time jazz as an independent genre had found itself a place in Hungarian state music education and this to a degree represented the recognition of jazz's improvisatory creative and performance practices as a sovereign art form. But it was also significant because jazz – through its impro-visatory technique – demands new styles of teaching and mentality that depart from those in traditional education. The circumstances surrounding this important moment were anything but favourable. The cultural policy of the time was blinkered and prejudiced, deeming jazz to be the cosmopolitan music of the American upper classes and, in common with other music forms created in the West or at least linked to it, its performance was strictly banned. As a consequence, Hungarian audiences were deprived of experiencing that particularly valuable period when modern jazz music became a podium form. During the cultural thaw that occurred in the sixties, there was considerable misunderstanding about jazz. The task to overcome was twofold: enlighten the general public to the fact that jazz was significantly different from popular light music; and convince the powers that be that their assessment of the genre was a profound mistake, because – although it has exerted its influence on many aspects of Western music culture – it evolved from AfroAmerican folklore, which was and remained the folk music of the American black community, which had been brought to America as slaves. Although there were abundant problems, jazz life began to take shape in the first half of the sixties, although admittedly within a modest framework. Groups and clubs were created, small scale concerts arranged and the ‘Modern Jazz’ record series was launched, and articles and studies were written about the genre. Two specialist books were also published. The creation of the jazz faculty strengthened this process. Its formation was even more significant given that, at that time in Europe, such education only existed in the Graz Academy in Austria and a few other places. I was entrusted with organising the faculty and then to lead it – which is what I did for decades. Teaching began in seven different branches: six instrumental and one vocal. Naturally we chose those instruments which had a leading role in jazz. Among the founding teachers who taught in the faculty were the likes of Balázs Berkes (double bass), Tamás Deák (trumpet), Gyula Kovács (drum), Dezső Selényi (trombone), Miklós Siliga (saxophone), and György Vukán (vocals). Owing to the number of those wanting to study piano, I taught it jointly with Béla Szakcsi Lakatos. We judged important subsidiary subjects to be jazz theory, jazz history, aural training adapted for jazz improvisation, and practice with small and large groups. To the surprise of many we introduced parallel teaching; the classical equivalent of the principal subject and some 51

THE JAZZ FACULTY TURNS FIFTY

subsidiary ones were included in the curriculum. Many asked whether this was necessary. According to a witty definition, jazz is a ‘crafty combination’ of improvised and non-improvised music. This music is not free imagination but an organic improvisation based on internal relationships paired with composed material. Also, because of its improvisational past, jazz is open to every direction: it enjoys a continuous and ever strengthening mutual influence with modern compositional music, with folklore, and to a degree, with popular music. Alongside the most characteristic mainstream jazz we find contemporary jazz, which touches on the world of composition; we find ethno jazz, which adapts folklore elements, and electronic fusion trends, which integrates rock elements. So a creative, well-trained jazz musician today must be informed about the world of traditional and modern compositional music, as well as Hungarian and international folklore. This genre, which unifies improvisation as ad hoc creation with pre-recorded elements, in addition to uniquely practical performances, requires a new kind of pedagogical approach alongside traditional teaching. Let me mention just a few: structuring and improvisational practices with characteristic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic jazz figures; transcription, which is noting down the improvisations of the masters, analysing and learning them; and the much-loved and useful playback ‘music minus one’ game: playing and improvising to a backtrack recorded by a professional group. This meant that improvisation received more pedagogical attention than ever before. In the progressive music teaching systems of the past century – for example the Orff, Dalcroze and Willems methods – improvisation plays an important role without exception, in the same way as in other art forms and alternative workshops. The pedagogical attitude to improvisation, which can be characterised as ‘if you can, do it, otherwise leave us in peace’, is particularly mistaken. Creativity development is inseparable from the idea of using and exploiting improvisation for teaching. This naturally strongly affected the formation and development of jazz teaching. During the course of the past fifty years, teaching methods have developed, and the faculty itself has changed considerably. New instrumental courses and subjects have been introduced: the guitar faculty with Gyula Babos, the bass guitar faculty with Béla Lattman, composition with Béla Faragó, and collaboration with specialist piano teachers. Another novelty is the teaching of percussion-vibraphone, augmenting the jazz drumming faculty, which is taught by Béla Zsoldos. The jazz faculty was not created to be an exotic novelty amid the teaching of music but to facilitate the organisation and nurturing of all of Hungarian jazz culture, including jazz teaching.

Ernő Hock, Ádám Meggyes, Szilveszter Miklós / Máté Pozsár Quartet feat. Kristóf Bacsó © LISZT ACADEMY / SÁNDOR BENKŐ 52

Adhering to this spirit, teaching began primarily in the lower classes of music and arts schools. Since the jazz faculty gives priority to teacher training, without exception the musicians and teachers employed in the new faculties graduated here. Later a new kind of teaching was introduced in professional specialist middle schools. Over the course of time it became evident that following the lower, middle and higher structural framework, the jazz faculty, which had the character of a college but operated within the framework of a specialist middle school, needed to be

transformed. The conversion to a college began in 1990 following various changes and expansion: the faculty first was placed within the realms of the Budapest Teacher Training Institute, then it became an official faculty at the Liszt Academy. Many factors contributed to this welcome process. Over the decades the status of the genre changed fundamentally: audiences and musical society became better acquainted with, and acceptant of, jazz; many recognised its importance and began falling in love with it. Of course, the activities of the faculty and the results it achieved naturally contributed to this, a linkage proven by both the domestic and international successes of the students who graduated here and by, no less, their playing. The best known figures of Hungarian jazz, who have blazed the trail over the last few decades and continue to do so, with few exceptions graduated from the faculty. There is no room to name them all, but we should make mention of the following: Károly Binder (the current head of the jazz faculty), László Gárdonyi, Kálmán Oláh, Frigyes Pleszkán, László Süle, Dániel Szabó (piano); Viktor Hárs, Béla Lattman, Pál Vasvári (bass, bass guitar); Elemér Balázs, István Baló, András Dés, András Mohay, Ferenc Németh (drums, percussion); Gábor Gadó, István Gyárfás, Gábor Juhász, Attila László, Ferenc Snétberger (guitar); Kristóf Bacsó, Mihály Borbély, Gyula Csepregi, László Dés, Mihály Dresch, Tony Lakatos (saxophone); István Fekete, Kornél Fekete-Kovács (trumpet); Károly Friedrich, Ferenc Schreck, Béla Szalóky (trombone); Tamás Berki, Kati Bontovics, Veronika Harcsa, Myrtill Micheller, Gábor Winand (vocals). János Gonda

THURSDAY 12 MARCH, 19.30

FRIDAY 13 MARCH, 19.00

SATURDAY 14 MARCH, 19.30

GRAND HALL

VOICE, SO CLOSE CSABA SOMOS DLA DOCTORAL CONCERT Puccini: Messa di Gloria National Choir (choral director: Mátyás Antal) Miskolc Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Csaba Somos Liszt Prize-laureate Csaba Somos has headed the Liszt Academy Chorus since 2013, and for more than 20 years he has been a regular guest conductor of several domestic symphony orchestras and choirs, as well as sitting on the juries of top singing competitions. Here he has selected one of the most sublime works of Romantic church music, a test piece from a century and a half ago, for the concert marking the finals of his DLA doctorate. Puccini was 22 when, as a graduation exercise, he set to music the mass, and although the composition was a considerable success at its world premiere, it was never performed again in his lifetime, nor did it ever go to print. The next full performance of Messa di Gloria took place in 1952. The operatic tone and full-blooded melodiousness so characteristic of 19th century Italian ecclesiastical music is, naturally, typical of this work. A few tunes may well be familiar for many, for example, Agnus Dei, which Puccini used later in Manon Lescaut. Csaba Somos is partnered by one of the finest orchestras in the country, the National Choir, and the brilliant Miskolc Symphony Orchestra. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 54

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Debussy: The Prodigal Son Rybnikov: Symphony No. 6 (Simfonia Tenebrosa) Ágnes Molnár (soprano) Péter Balczó (tenor) Antal Cseh (baritone) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Gergely Kesselyák

DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK János Vajda: Sinfonia, ma non troppo Paul Schoenfield: Four Parables Grieg: Peer Gynt – incidental music György Oravecz (piano) Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok Conductor: Gábor Hollerung

Gergely Kesselyák delights in presenting to domestic audiences works by undiscovered composers or forgotten, rarely-performed works by famous masters. This time the shooting star of the young conductor generation brings us into contact with contemporary Russian composer Alexey Rybnikov. A student of Khachaturian, Rybnikov (born in 1945) is an unusually multifaceted composer who is equally at home in the world of opera or film music as he is in instrumental genres ranked as the classics. Indeed, he is associated with the first Russian rock operas. Simfonia Tenebrosa is set over four movements and follows the appearance of evil and the battle between lightness and dark in the world. In the first half the MÁV Symphony Orchestra interpret Debussy’s cantata (or as he called it, a ‘scène lyrique’) on the prodigal son. Ágnes Molnár, Tibor Szappanos and Antal Cseh take the solo roles in the work on the popular parable in dramatized form.

‘Symphony, but not too much’ – this is the title of the János Vajda piece composed for the Miskolc Opera Festival in 2010. “Scintillating musical solutions, ingenious orchestration and a rich expressive mode characterize this modern and yet audience-friendly piece,” wrote one critic after the premiere. The American Paul Schoenfield (a contemporary of János Vajda) started his career as a concert pianist (he appeared as a partner of Sergio Lucca at memorable concerts of Bartók works for violin and piano), and his 1983 composition Four Parables is in fact a piano concerto. One of the most entertaining pieces of the late 20th century repertoire, it is packed with jazz, rhythm and characteristically American elements. The principal part is played by György Oravecz, one of the most exciting pianist personalities of his generation, in partnership with the Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok, under conductor Gábor Hollerung.

Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 3 200, 3 900, 4 500 Organizer: Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok

MEETING THE LITTLE DOE (2002) © GÁBOR GERHES KING SAINT STEPHEN MUSEUM – SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR

THEATRICALITY, HUMANITY, HUMILITY The Manchester Camerata is visiting Hungary for the first time. Since 2011 its artistic director has been Gábor Takács-Nagy. A good few years ago he exchanged his violin for the conductor's baton. He is an artist who shrinks from all the allures of stardom. We took the opportunity to ask him about the behind-the-scenes secrets of the English ensemble, about star soloists and star conductors.

The Manchester Camerata appears to be a very ‘cool’ ensemble, because your activities include opera film concerts and stage performances with fireworks. We have to reach out to young people. There is a problem all over the world of what will happen to serious music concerts as audiences inevitably age. We have to win over the young generation differently, with special attractions. Besides the very successful break-out points that you mentioned, the Manchester Camerata aims to develop a very close relationship with local youngsters: the orchestra members visit schools to hold musical activities, and youngsters learning instruments can even spend a whole day sitting in an orchestra alongside professional musicians. Your guest in Budapest will be István Várdai, recent winner of the ARD competition. Does it not bother you that the audience is coming to hear the soloist? In István's case, it certainly does not bother me because although he is much younger than I am, I regard him as a good friend. Additionally, our tastes are quite similar: he represents the same kind of profound, colourful music making as I do. The music is what is important; but it is not a problem when a great star brings along an audience. But you have to trust that you are not going to shrivel into being the fourth official in a football match. We tend to envisage star conductors as authoritarian personalities, bellowing from the podium. When a conductor allows his ego to come to the fore excessively, it derails the orchestra. The musicians will bend physically to the conductor's will but not their souls, and the audience can sense that. Of course, you can't make an orchestra from a bunch of mates where the musicians are playing as a favour. The conductor must be the boss, but he must remain a human being, moreover, a human who loves music a hundred times more than he loves himself. He must be grateful at any given instant to the musicians struggling with a thousand individual problems to make his concept a reality. One of the most important things for a conductor is, in my view, to liberate the musicians' souls, to free any inhibitions. We don't have to fear tiny errors of intonation, as the audience is not concentrating on that. In a concert the goal is not technical perfection – leave that for the recording studio – but experiencing music as flesh and blood theatre. Mattheson wrote in 1722 that “everything which expresses human feelings and which affects us, is theatrical. So all true, frank and profound music making is theatrical.” Leopold Mozart – and I never walk onto the concert platform without saying

this to myself – wrote a few decades later that “the first duty of a musician is for the player to enter into the mood and effect that prevails in the work, thus gaining the listener's favour and stimulating in him its passions.” That is what it is about! The concert is also theatre and must broadcast human feelings towards the audience. A power-hungry conductor merely suffocates the necessary creative energies in the musicians. Often the garnishing surrounding star conductors who are marketed as world brands can seem like drama… Sadly, today's world is susceptible to false talents. If a lady musician is attractive and wears a mini skirt, she is a potential winner at the box office. That is how it is. But we know classical music stars whose true knowledge is about as big as the bubble that surround them. In a recent interview I read by you, you quoted Bernard Haitink saying that conducting is 51 percent dependent on socio-psychological sensitivity. What percentage is humility? I would not like to put a figure on it, but Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Bartók and all the great composers put their heart and souls into those pieces which we perform. If they once radiated humanism – well how can we approach them differently? Martha Argerich said last year after our Beethoven concert, “I will never understand arrogant musicians. These composers are a hundred times greater than we are, so how does someone dare think they know what they wrote better than they did?” Although we, the performers, go out on stage, it is the composer and the music that are caught in the footlights! Dániel Végh

GÁBOR TAKÁCS-NAGY 57

TUESDAY 17 MARCH, 19.30

WEDNESDAY 18 MARCH, 19.30

THURSDAY 19 MARCH, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

BEYOND MUSIC... TAMÁS VÁSÁRY MUSICAL CONVERSATIONS Works by Beethoven MR Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad) MR Symphony Orchestra Narrator, conductor and piano accompaniment: Vásáry Tamás Tamás Vásáry plays piano, conducts and talks about music. Anyone who has enjoyed such an event only once will know that it is far from easy to decide which is the greatest and most fundamental experience. On this occasion the Kossuth Prize-winning artist brings perhaps the most influential figure of the classical music tradition into focus: Ludwig van Beethoven, who transformed the history of music for ever. We find out about the successful youthful titan who, following into the footsteps of Mozart, entranced the Viennese aristocracy; the increasingly deaf composer chasing heroic ideals who stretched himself ever further; the virtuoso, though still able to amaze audiences with his works, who became increasingly difficult to understand; and the transcendent genius ultimately insulated from the world by profound deafness. Beethoven was a person capable of both speaking to humanity as a whole (in his Ninth Symphony), or plumbing the depths of the human soul (in the late string quartets). Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 000, 4 000 Organizer: Hungarian Radio and Television Music Ensembles 58

ORCHESTRA IN THE CENTRE GÁBOR TAKÁCS-NAGY & MANCHESTER CAMERATA Mozart: Divertimento in F major (K. 138) Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major (Hob. VIIb:1) Elgar: Sospiri, op. 70 Tchaikovsky: String Serenade, op. 48 Andrea Vigh (harp); István Várdai (cello) Manchester Camerata Artistic director and conductor: Gábor Takács-Nagy

JAZZ IT! VIJAY IYER TRIO (USA)

Manchester Camerata (founded in 1972), who under the artistic direction of Gábor Takács-Nagy now rank among the leading ensembles in the world, illuminate the path to the future of classical music. They combine the highest performance standards with maximum openness towards the other arts, to popular and folk trends, as well as jazz. In their first concert in Budapest we hear two popular classical orchestral compositions, along with two concertos. Edward Elgar’s single-movement Sospiri (‘Sigh’), composed in 1914 for harp and orchestra, evokes the idyllic world of peace before the onset of the First World War: Liszt Academy President Andrea Vigh is harp soloist. István Várdai plays Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, one of the most popular works written for cello. Having already triumphed at the Geneva International Competition in 2008, István Várdai won the ARD competition in Munich in 2014, considered by many as being among the most prestigious of contests.

Vijay Iyer (piano) Stephan Crump (bass) Marcus Gilmore (drums)

Tickets: HUF 1 400, 2 100, 3 500, 4 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Vijay Iyer has been described by The New Yorker as one of “today’s most important pianists,” is adding that he is “extravagantly gifted and brilliantly eclectic.” In 2010 the American Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) voted him Musician of the Year, and in the same year his triple album Historicity received a Grammy nomination. Born in New York to immigrant Indian parents, Vijay Iyer has played in many different line-ups, including alongside Steve Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell and Rudresh Mahanthappa. This combo, made up with Marcus Gilmore (grandson of Roy Haynes) on drums and Stephan Crump on bass, is a modern take on the classical piano trio; they place particular stress on refined rhythm solutions settled on the core beat, silky smooth improvisations and emotionally rich yet at the same time carefully contrived textures.

Viyar Iyer TRIO © JIMMY KATZ

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS Playing music sharpens the brain. It's proven. I'm a musician, but I've also spent a number of years studying mathematics and physics. That is unlikely to have made me a better musician or composer, but playing music from an early age has, quite possibly, made me better at maths. Today, I like to let both disciplines talk to each other, and use mathematical ideas in my composing. They help me find sounds and rhythms that I might never have made otherwise. I want to make music that hits me viscerally, but in surprising, unobvious ways.

Fibonacci was a 13 th-century Italian mathematician who brought the Indian-Arabic number system to Europe. He also wrote about the set of numbers that now bears his name. I became intrigued by these numbers some years ago and have used them to structure much of my work ever since. The Fibonacci sequence begins: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, and continues from there. Each number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers, and it continues ad infinitum. If you look at the ratios of two successive Fibonacci numbers, and keep going up the sequence, you get: 1, 2, 1.5, 1.667, 1.6, 1.625, 1.615, 1.619, 1.618 … As you go up the sequence, this ratio gets closer and closer to a famous irrational number called the ‘golden ratio’: 1.6180339887. That ratio has been observed frequently in dimensional proportions across many different contexts: in architecture from the Pyramids of Giza and the Parthenon, to constructions by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe; in images by artists from Da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer to Juan Gris, Mondrian and Dalí; and in rhythmic durations and pitch ratios in works by composers from Bartók and Debussy to John Coltrane and Steve Coleman. (Coleman introduced me to this whole idea.) What interests me about the Fibonacci numbers is their scaling property. Because the ratios get successively closer to the golden ratio, the ratio 5:3 is not the same as but ‘similar’ to the ratio 8:5, which is ‘similar’ to the ratio 13:8, or 144:89, or 6,765:4,181. But what do I mean by as vague a term as ‘similar’? This is a question I explore musically with my trio's version of Mystic Brew, a 70s soul-jazz classic by Ronnie Foster. The harmonic rhythm in Foster's original is asymmetric in a Fibonacci way: a short chord and then a long chord, three beats plus five beats, totalling eight beats. It's standard four-four time, with one added feature: if you were to step to the beat, you'd hear a chord when you take your first step, and then another chord while your knee is aloft between the second and third steps. This is a rhythm that you hear in all kinds of places – think of the opening chords of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. Suppose you had a round pie and eight guests. You know how to divide that pie into eight equal pieces, and you know exactly what that pie would look like with three pieces missing. Now, suppose five more friends unexpectedly show up. You have the same pie and 13 guests. How do you divide a circle into 13 by eye? A decent short cut would be to imagine it divided into eight with three pieces missing, and cut that shape. Then, divide the smaller section you've just cut into five equal pieces, and the larger section into eight. Your result would be close enough. This is something like the technique we use here, only instead of a pie we divide a length of time. The three beats and five beats of the original are transformed to a faster five beats and eight beats (totalling 13), which then becomes a still-faster eight beats and 13 beats (totalling 21). Each transformed measure is roughly the same length and, importantly,

the second chord lands at roughly the same time, about 3/8 of the way through (or 5/13, or 8/21). The goal is that you perceive the ‘short-long’ division of the cycle the same way in each case. Thankfully the ear is forgiving: because we expect and even crave continuity in our perception, our listening brains help smooth things out. Like the guests eating your slices of pie, the ear doesn't complain about small differences. In this case, the overall motion proceeds seemingly undeterred – including a sense of regular pulse – while the music's inner mechanism seems to quicken. As abstruse as some of this may seem, there are specific cultural origins for these techniques. As the American-born son of immigrants from India, I'm very inspired by Karnataka music – the ‘classical’ music of south India. It is a tradition of religious song, very intricately organised: melodically nuanced and rhythmically dazzling, full of systematic permutations. I'm also interested in the African roots of African-American music, which have a profound and widespread influence on nearly every vernacular music we have in the West. These non-Western musical traditions are just as deeply ordered with rhythm as Western music is with harmony. But there's a qualitative difference between rhythm and harmony: when you organise rhythms, you structure a listener's experience in time. Rhythm is the first thing we perceive about music. It hits us viscerally. Why? Perhaps it's because the rhythms of music are not so different from the inherent timescales of human bodies. Think of the rapid clip of our speech, the bounce of our walk, the slow ebbing of our breath. And then think of Charlie Parker's conversational saxophone solos, Ray Brown's loping basslines, or Billie Holiday's cries and sighs. Musical rhythm resembles human bodies in motion because music is the sound of bodies in motion. So when you impose rigorous order on musical rhythm, you are organising human motion. You create a dialogue between the physical and the ideal: embodied human action in a structured environment. The process gives us something to strive for, to work through, to achieve with virtuosity and grace. This is the case with music, sport, dance, ritual, games, art. The dialectic between soul and science, freedom and discipline, self and non-self. Dare I say it? – That's culture in a nutshell. Vijay Iyer Abridged version of the article published in the Guardian (15 October 2009)

SATURDAY 21 MARCH, 11.00

SATURDAY 21 MARCH, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS CONDUCTOR FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS

TALENT OBLIGE GERGELY DEVICH

Works by Mozart, Haydn and Weber Eszter Zemlényi (soprano) Gábor Pintér (actor) Divisi Chamber Orchestra Narrator and conductor: Dávid Dinya What is a viola doing in the orchestra if it rarely gets a melody and it does not play the bass either? Why is a conductor needed when sometimes the orchestra gets along fine without him? What is the role of the score in classical music when many music cultures (folk music, jazz, Gregorian, etc.) managed and still manage without it? What do opera directors do and would they be missed by the singers and audience if they were not there? The Liszt Academy series for young people seeks answers to these and many other questions. For the second time Dávid Dinya, doctoral student at the Liszt Academy, and the Divisi Chamber Orchestra guide young people through the mysteries of the work of conductors. We learn about the sort of problems that arise in an orchestral rehearsal, what the baton is used for, how an orchestra becomes a single instrument, why a conductor must have an insight into psychology, and why a symphony orchestra cannot be operated along purely democratic lines. And at the end of the day the conclusion, naturally, is that the conductor is far from superfluous in classical music. Tickets: HUF 1 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: NKA 62

Schumann: Fantasiestücke, op. 73 Brahms: Sonata for Cello and Piano in E minor, op. 38 Kodály: Solo Sonata, op. 8 – 1st movement Bartók: Duos (arrangements for two cellos by Walter Kurz) Schumann: Adagio and allegro, op. 70 Gergely Devich, Balázs Dolfin (cello); Mária Kovalszki (piano) “If only the artist of the future would mark out the goal within himself, and not without, and virtuosity would be the means alone and not the ultimate aim. If only he always kept in mind that although according to the saying, noblesse oblige, but at least as much, and rather far more, than nobility: GÉNIE OBLIGE (Genius obliges)!” Thus wrote Ferenc Liszt about Paganini in 1840, and he himself was an example to posterity of what talent demands of an artist: above all else, the sharing of talent with the world. The series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre, which started in 2013, provides the opportunity for several students or ensembles of the Liszt Academy to present themselves every half year. On this occasion the general public have the chance to see and hear Gergely Devich, student of László Mező in the preparatory department of the Liszt Academy. There is no better proof of his talent than the result of the most recent Young Musicians Eurovision Competition in Cologne, where he finished third, giving Hungary its best result since the contest began. Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

SUNDAY 22 MARCH, 19.30

TUESDAY 24 MARCH, 19.30

GRAND HALL

VOICE, SO CLOSE JUDIT RAJK AND & SAINT EPHRAIM MALE CHOIR “BYZANTIUM, OUR CONTEMPORARY”

MISKOLC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA HUNGARY AND THE WORLD

Greek Orthodox-Byzantine chants, mediaeval cantigas, and works by Yekimov, Dukay, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky and Bartók Judit Rajk (alto) János Palojtay (piano) Saint Ephraim Male Choir (artistic director: Tamás Bubnó)

JUDIT RAJK © ANDREA FELVÉGI

Kodály: The Peacock Hubay-Banda: Larghetto, op. 14/2 Zsolt-Banda: Valse caprice Ravel: Tzigane Bartók: Dance Suite (BB 86) Kodály: Psalmus Hungaricus Ádám Banda (violin); Attila Fekete (tenor) Nyíregyháza Cantemus Chorus (choral director: Dénes Szabó) Miskolc Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Domonkos Héja

When we think of Christian liturgical music following the Byzantine rite, many might summon an ancient, archaic vocal culture. Few would believe that the history of Byzantine singing is far from over, and just as in preceding centuries, the Eastern Church repertoire is being enriched and expanded in the 21 st century. Perhaps it was exactly this – the vitality of the tradition – that so captivated Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky in their day. For the Saint Ephraim Male Choir the performance of early or new, traditional or composed music is not primarily a question of mission or resolve but rather a natural state. Judit Rajk, winner of the Artisjus Prize on several occasions, professor of the church music department, and one of the most accomplished performers of contemporary music, is the partner of the choir for this concert.

Three emblematic 20 th-century Hungarian compositions and three virtuoso violin works appear on the programme of the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra concert. The distinguished orchestra, conducted by Domonkos Héja, revive Kodály’s The Peacock variation, as well as his Psalmus Hungaricus and Bartók’s Dance Suite, both composed for the 50 th anniversary of the unification of Pest, Buda and Óbuda. Jenő Hubay, former director of the Liszt Academy and perhaps the single most influential figure in the Hungarian string tradition, filled an important role in the life of Ádám Banda, himself a multiple competition winner. The example of his great predecessor is evident in the nobility of his violin playing and the solidity of tone.

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 700, 2 800, 3 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 2 900, 3 900 Organizer: Miskolc Symphony Orchestra 63

WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH, 19.30

THURSDAY 26 MARCH, 19.30

GRAND HALL

CONCERTO BUDAPEST & UMZE CHAMBER ENSEMBLE PIERRE BOULEZ 90 Pierre Boulez: Rituel – In memoriam Bruno Maderna Incises (Hungarian premiere) Sur Incises (Hungarian premiere)

60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MR CHILDREN’S CHOIR

Concerto Budapest, UMZE Chamber Ensemble Conductor: Zoltán Rácz

Choral works by Mendelssohn, Bartók, Kodály, Bárdos, János Decsényi, Gyula Fekete, Péter Tóth and Gyula Bánkövi

Few have had such an influence on the music of the second half of the 20th century as Pierre Boulez, both as composer and conductor. Despite his seminal role, which can be said without exaggeration to have been of profound significance to the history of music, most of his significant works are not embedded into the public’s music consciousness, indeed the majority have never even been performed in concert in Hungary. This Concerto Budapest and UMZE Chamber Ensemble performance features an unusually orchestrated and especially spatially-structured composition from the middle of Boulez’s career (Rituel), and two representative late works (Incises and Sur incises). In Rituel, which was written for eight instrument groups on the death of Bruno Maderna, Boulez recoded the name of Maderna into a tonal sequence; in the solo piano work Incises, and in Sur incises, which further developed the piano composition, being written for three pianos, three harps and three percussion groups, he used a scale derived from the name of Swiss conductor and impresario Paul Sacher. Boulez (90 this year) wrote this work in 1996 in honour of Sacher, who was then celebrating his 90th birthday.

MR Children’s Choir Zsuzsanna Arany (piano) Chamber Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra Conductors: László Matos, Sándor Kabdebó

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 000, 3 500 Organizer: Concerto Budapest, UMZE Chamber Ensemble 64

Founded in 1954 by Valéria Botka and László Csányi, the Hungarian Radio and Television Children’s Choir have over the past 60 years covered virtually the entire globe and have, by taking part in contemporary premieres and by combining adult discipline yet the crystal clear purity of children’s voices, proven their stature when they perform either Gregorian or Renaissance works. Their anniversary programme features resounding compositions by European and Hungarian composers. Their voices will no doubt resound through the hall, since anyone who has heard the Hungarian Radio and Television Children’s Choir knows that their sound has maintained its elemental force and authenticity over many generations. This is due in large part to Gabriella Thész, who oversaw the ensemble for so many years and truly shaped its personality, as well as the current conductors of the choir, László Matos and Sándor Kabdebó, who have followed in her footsteps. Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 000, 4 000 Organizer: MR Music Ensembles

MR CHILDREN’S CHOIR

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THREE CONCERTS AT THE GRAND HALL OF THE LISZT ACADEMY OF MUSIC 23 JANUARY 2015, FRIDAY, 19:30............................. BRAHMS: TRAGIC OVERTURE, OP.81 BARTÓK: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2, SZ. 95 BB 101 SÁRI JÓZSEF: JAKOB’S RINGEN MIT DER FINSTERNIS - FOR STRINGS (PREMIERE) R. STRAUSS: DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION, OP.24

MR Symphony Orchestra, MR Choir Conductor: Zoltán Pad 10 MARCH 2015, TUESDAY, 19:30............................. BACH: MASS IN B-MINOR, BWV 232

20 FEBRUARY 2015, FRIDAY, 19:30...........................

Soloists: Beatrix Fodor, Melinda Heiter, Atala Schöck, Zoltán Megyesi , István Kovács MR Symphony Orchestra, MR Choir (choirmaster: Zoltán Pad) Conductor: János Kovács

HÄNDEL: ISRAEL IN EGYPT

FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT WWW.MRZE.HU

Balázs Fülei - piano, MR Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Gergely Vajda

Soloists: Zita Váradi, Krisztina Jónás, Atala Schöck, László Kálmán, Thomas Šelc, Krisztián Cser

PARITY Nothing better demonstrates the symbiosis of teaching and concert performing than the ‘On the Spot’ concert series, which introduces the faculties of the Liszt Academy. To mark this series of concerts, we chatted with violinist, founder of the Keller Quartet, director of the resident orchestra at the Liszt Academy Concerto Budapest, and chamber workshop director, András Keller, and bassoon artist and woodwind faculty director, György Lakatos, about the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity and about collaboration between faculties.

To what extent does the legendary chamber music tradition of the Liszt Academy live on today? András Keller: Whether they like it or not, by the nature of their instruments, woodwind players need chamber music. Wind players naturally work at playing in ensembles, so they are prepared for life after graduation rather better than string students, who are not always aware they are going to spend 98 percent of their lives in orchestras and chamber groups. I regard it as a daily problem, and at present teaching at the Liszt Academy is not properly geared for this. I am very envious of what Gyuri and friends are managing to achieve. György Lakatos: Andris is absolutely right that chamber music has been squeezed into the background in previous years. A tuba player, bassoonist or horn player may get asked to work as a soloist, but he is hardly going to make a living from it. A wind musician gets in the habit of playing in full orchestras while still at the conservatoire, and because of the repertoire they often play in trios, quartets and quintets. It is our fortune that the greatest Hungarian composers, from Petrovics to Hidas, from Ligeti to Kurtág, have written chamber works for us. By the same token, I notice that the traditional self-organisation that passed from one year to the next has died out. For this reason, I hit upon the idea of our organising a competition in April with the Debrecen University for wind quintets, to encourage the students to get together... AK: I knew we would get to this rather quickly! GYL: And even though we didn't plan to discuss it! What do you mean by self-organisation?

ANDRÁS KELLER & GYÖRGY LAKATOS © ANDREA FELVÉGI 66

GYL: I remember when I was a student, I'd go and grab, say, Keller and invite him down to the library, where we would read a score together. Or I'd find someone else to play with for a bit, then go to see Gyuri Kurtág and his lesson. When we finished our practice at eight o'clock-ish, we all went to the student gallery: it really didn't matter who was playing the piano or what orchestra was performing. We went to good and bad, and of course we went to the pub, but we wanted to hear every concert. I remember when Georg Solti came to the Erkel Theatre with the London Symphony Orchestra, we couldn't get in through the artists' entry, so we climbed through a window: Keller, Csalog, Szokolay and myself. It was our bad luck that only the window of the ladies' toilet was open. Szokolay got through, but Csalog and I were caught by the guards. Today, this self-organisational dynamism has dwindled to almost nothing, and yet without it you cannot become a musician. This magnificently restored Liszt Academy has reopened and yet concerts are not stuffed with students. (Nor, I should say, with teachers either.) I know that today we do not live in that era. They go home, actually not even home, they can go to a café,

plug headphones into their mobile phone and download some music. They are not bothered by sound quality and do not know what it is like live. AK: The world has changed. It has become much faster. Priorities have changed with the internet, which of course does not mean that today's children do not like music. Of course they do. But they search for something on YouTube, have a look, grasp what it is in general terms, but they do not listen to whole works, either from recordings or live. For today's young people, the opportunities for ad hoc music making have disappeared. The project attitude has chased out community spirit – but there is no project music. Very early on I joined the Liszt Academy orchestra, under the guidance of the legendary Albert Simon, when sometimes quietly, sometimes bellowing, he shaped the music with us. And we did the same thing at weekends with György Kurtág, as well. It is rather problematic making spontaneity a compulsory subject. AK: I would like the principal subjects taught at the Liszt Academy to serve a larger joint objective, which is of course hard to break down into credits, but I think it is worthwhile trying. GYL: All is not yet lost. We can fill the Liszt Academy with life, which is to say with chamber music. Because the generation which makes up today's teaching staff were participants at a young age of this particular school, the essence of which is that teachers learn and students teach. Do you sense in the playing of youngsters that they have little live concert and group music experience? KA: Young people are always good. They come to Concerto Budapest and do not know – and why should they? – how they must articulate in a Mozart symphony, what sort of bowing action to use. But in just three days, they learn by sitting next to professional musicians in the orchestra. Students learn ten times more, ten times more quickly than if they practise on their own. They are taking part in real workshop work. They pick up the pulsating rhythm unique to a professional orchestra. They are forced to, otherwise they get lost. GYL: Perfectly true. The audience and children are never at fault, only the performer and the teacher can be bad. Tamás Vajna

FRIDAY 27 MARCH, 19.30

SATURDAY 28 MARCH, 19.30

WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL, 19.30

GRAND HALL

CHAMBER MUSIC FOR GRAND HALL ANDRÁS KELLER, CSABA KLENYÁN, DÉNES VÁRJON HOMMAGE À BARTÓK Bartók: Violin Sonata No. 2 (BB 85) J. S. Bach: Violin Sonata in E major (BWV 1016) Bartók: Contrasts (BB 116) J. S. Bach: Violin Sonata in C minor (BWV 1017) Bartók: Violin Sonata No. 1 (BB 84)

ON THE SPOT CHAMBER MUSIC WORKSHOP Rachmaninoff: Fantaisie-Tableaux, op. 5 Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-flat major, op. 47 Bartók: 44 Duos for Violin (BB 104, excerpts) Mendelssohn: Sextet in D major, op. 110

András Keller (violin) Csaba Klenyán (clarinet) Dénes Várjon (piano)

Gábor Csalog, Balázs Fülei, András Keller and their students

András Keller and Dénes Várjon rank among the most important and influential artistic personalities of the Liszt Academy concert life. Audiences of the Grand Hall are regularly spellbound by Keller as leader of Concerto Budapest and first violinist of the Keller Quartet, and Várjon as soloist and chamber musician. Last season we were witness to their combined enterprise (crowned with success) when they performed all Beethoven’s piano concertos. This time we can reckon on them offering an equally remarkable programme. The artists, known for their profundity and intellectual approach, take to the stage with Bach and Bartók sonatas as well as Contrasts, the latter in the last mentioned assisted by excellent clarinettist Csaba Klenyán. The music of Bach played a vital role in the artistic thinking of Bartók: he not only nurtured a close relationship with the Bach oeuvre as a pianist but also as a publisher and teacher. And as far as composition is concerned, he himself admitted in the mid-1920s that instead of the Beethoven patterns used in earlier years, he increasingly relied on Bach solutions in compositions.

Chamber music has been extremely important from the very beginning of the Liszt Academy, and undoubtedly the most important figure in the history of the institution in this respect was Leó Weiner, who taught chamber music from 1923, and whose workshop, which operated virtually as an independent institution within the academy, turned out students such as Georg Solti, Antal Doráti, Tibor Varga, Dénes Kovács, Albert Simon, János Starker, György Kurtág – and this list could continue for a lot longer. So the fact that the chamber music workshop is once again functioning in the Liszt Academy, under the leadership of András Keller, and that a significant slice of the concerts being staged in the renovated Grand Hall are chamber recitals, is sufficient cause for celebration of the fact that even in the 21st century there are still rational people willing to converse with each other. In this concert, which introduces the workshop, three key chamber music teachers of the Academy, Gábor Csalog, Balázs Fülei and András Keller, take to the stage of the Grand Hall to give – in partnership with their students – a taste of the work that goes on behind the scenes.

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 700, 2 800, 3 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert

Tickets: HUF 800, 1 200, 1 600, 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

PURE BAROQUE ST JOHN PASSION J. S. Bach: St John Passion (BWV 245) Purcell Choir Orfeo Orchestra (on period instruments) Conductor: György Vashegyi When Johann Sebastian Bach was appointed director of music in Leipzig he set out on an ambitious undertaking. Although his contract did not require him to present his own cantata every Sunday and feast day, Bach still decided to write five years’ worth of cantatas joined by passions (from a musical aspect these are nothing other than extended cantatas), composed for the Easter period in accordance with then Lutheran practice. As far as we know, Bach composed five passions in his lifetime, but only two have survived: the first is the St John Passion (1724), which was reworked on numerous occasions over succeeding decades. György Vashegyi, a key figure in Hungary’s period instrument performance practice, and his ensembles, the Purcell Choir (25 years old this year) and Orfeo Orchestra, perform the original version. Tickets: HUF 1 900, 3 100, 4 300, 5 400 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Father with Curtain (2012) © VIOLA FÁTYOL

THURSDAY 2 APRIL, 19.30

FRIDAY 3 APRIL, 19.00

GRAND HALL

BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA KOCSIS – WAR AND PEACE Bartók: Dance Suite (BB 86) Stravinsky: Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra Debussy: Ibéria Ravel–Kocsis: Le tombeau de Couperin Zoltán Fejérvári (piano) Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Conductor: Zoltán Kocsis This is a chance to witness a unique meeting of artists: the several-decade-old ensemble, undoubtedly ranked among the foremost Hungarian orchestras, is conducted by Zoltán Kocsis, and what’s more, with a repertoire of which the pianist-conductor is recognized worldwide as being one of the finest interpreters and exponents. As we have become accustomed to from this artist, all the pieces in the programme bear some relation to the others, whether it be the period in which they were written, their stylistic hallmarks or other common characteristic. For instance, the Bartók work, written to mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of Buda, Pest and Óbuda, and Stravinsky’s virtuoso Capriccio basically date from the same time, that is, the second half of the 1920s. Debussy’s beautiful three-movement Ibéria, rich in lyrical and exciting colourshade combinations – indeed evoking fragrances – was composed in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, while Ravel’s Baroque-like suite was penned just a few years later. The solo role is taken by 29-year-old Zoltán Fejérvári, who has already played together with Zoltán Kocsis and the Hungarian National Philharmonic on several occasions – a better letter of recommendation one cannot imagine. Tickets: HUF 2 700, 3 500, 4 200, 4 900 Organizer: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Kft. 70

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FRENCH RECITAL Berlioz: King Lear – overture Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, op. 33 Ravel: Alborada del gracioso Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé – 2nd suite Frans Helmerson (cello) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Péter Csaba The solo part in the Cello Concerto in A minor by Saint-Saëns at this French recital by the MÁV Symphony Orchestra features truly one of the greatest living cellists, Frans Helmerson. Helmerson, who was launched on his career by among others Mstislav Rostropovich and Sergiu Celibidache, has travelled the globe as soloist and chamber musician in the past more than five decades. Following Cologne and Madrid, he is today permanent guest professor at the Berlin Academy of Music. The Saint-Saëns cello concerto, of undisputed significance in the renewal of French instrumental music after the Franco-Prussian War, was considered by both Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff as the outstanding creation of its genre. Following Berlioz and his dramatic King Lear – overture, which was also presented by Liszt, compatriot Ravel makes an appearance. The orchestral arrangement of the piano work Alborada del gracioso (‘Morning song of the jester’) is played as a curiosity, followed by the 2nd suite from the ballet music Daphnis et Chloé, one of his most popular orchestral compositions. The work dazzled contemporary audiences with its “immensely attractive, fresh and gentle treatment” of a Rococo pastoral world. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

EVOCATION OF A SPIRIT The Liszt Academy concert magazine sat down with Zoltán Kocsis to talk about the spectres of his great predecessors, the oppressive greatness of Sviatoslav Richter, the noble generosity of Ferenc Liszt's piano playing, and the limitations of the written score.

When you were a student at the Liszt Academy, to what extent did the spectres of your great predecessors Liszt, Bartók, Dohnányi or the great 20th century pianists, cast a shadow over you all? Nothing cast a shadow over us. Of course, a Richter concert could weigh down on us for days – that certainly happened. Once I heard him in the Grand Hall and I didn't play the piano for a whole week afterwards, and I thought that however much I practise, I would never attain the level of perfection he represented. But then the music would break the impasse and I would start working on pieces again, realising that I did not have to play everything at Richter's tempo. Actually, I later succeeded in surpassing him in some works. Once, after we had become personally acquainted, we arranged a competition to see who could play various works faster. He won in some works; I won in others. Of course, where Richter was concerned, this was not what was important. Rather, it was the attitude of striving exclusively for the essence. He was not interested in that level of overrefinement, the utter unblemished exterior perfection which was perhaps characteristic of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. To what extent did internal and external perfection of performance matter to Liszt, who was no stranger to star allure? From a PR perspective, Liszt was a ground breaker. Before his concerts, he took care that his fame would precede him and he knew precisely how to make an impact on an audience. From contemporary descriptions, and from his many pieces which, shall we say, are of assorted average quality, it is clear that the objective was not perfection in the Latin sense. Of course, it does not hurt for someone to try to communicate their thoughts as perfectly as possible, but I agree with Liszt in that artistic truth is what is most important. This can be perceived in the playing of numerous of ‘Liszt's grandchildren’, for example, Ernst von Dohnányi. It is a type of generosity in the noble sense that places substance above realisation. Where my own piano career is concerned, I have always had a double aim in my mind's eye: firstly to bring the score to life, and secondly to fully make the composer's intention a reality. How this can be achieved depends on the style and the composer, but the performer's imagination and individuality are indispensable, because deficiencies in notating music means that a great deal cannot be written down. Bartók notated peasant songs with quite incredible accuracy, but his Piano Sonata and other works feature extremely complex systems of agogic accents and stresses which are impossible to write down. Only the performer's imagination can bring these works alive. And there is the sort of rhythmic precision that was the trait of Gershwin's piano playing and thus cannot be written down. Wagner wrote somewhere that when Liszt performed Beethoven it was not piano playing but the evocation of a spirit. That is the Lisztian school. 71

EVOCATION OF A SPIRIT

To what extent was the Liszt tradition present in the teaching at the Liszt Academy when you were a student? If we want to understand that era, we have to retune our way of thinking to the Bolshevist attitude, which preferred easily digestible music, something that is now making a return from the other side of the Atlantic. Kodály's principle of ‘let music belong to everyone’ is of course very beautiful, but instrumental teaching is now paying the price for this endeavour. When I auditioned for the Academy, there was a fantastic array of teachers sitting opposite me in the Chamber Hall. For the generation between our teachers and my own age group, which is to say those who studied at the Academy in the 1950s and 1960s, they had to exist within an incredibly closed environment, and very few of them were able to enjoy a significant career. Those who did were largely the ones who went abroad, such as Tamás Vásáry or Péter Frankl. That I, Ránki, Schiff and others emerged in the 1970s was thanks to a change of attitude under the patronage of Dénes Kovács, who succeeded the one-time Red Army soldier Ferenc Szabó as rector. We became familiar – of course from records – with the most important foreign pianists, such as Gould, who exerted a tremendous influence on all of us, and a fantastic staff of teachers helped us find our way around. And while it is possibly true that Pál Kadosa collaborated with the regime and whose word meant life or death, there is no doubting his exceptional musicality. He spoke little in lessons but when he did, his words had great gravity. In those days there was no mention of the Liszt tradition, but I see now that in Europe there were two prevailing schools of pianism. One was the Slavic line of Theodor Lescheticzky and his wider circle of students, which exerts an influence even today, and the other was that of Ferenc Liszt. And in my view, the latter had and still has the greater influence: it is more fecund, which is partly because Liszt was so much more than a mere pianist. How important a consideration is fidelity to the score? I can't compare that feeling when you realise that you have been playing a wrongly-learned note for twenty five years to anything else – you feel so ashamed. We know that the great composers repeatedly made corrections to their works during the course of their lifetimes, and not just composers such as Beethoven, who habitually rewrote his works and produced a great many sketches, but also such ‘computer brain’ composers as Bach. So if they had to work so hard on their works, then for us performers, we are utterly obliged to give an account of every single written note. But that in itself is not enough. I remember that Richter learned works from photocopies of terrible Russian editions, and once I quizzed him about a Haydn sonata, asking whether he shouldn't perhaps be playing from the Urtext edition. Referring to the distinguished Haydn scholar Christa Landon, Richter asked in return: “Because that woman told you to?” When I was young, being faithful to the score was much more important to me, and now when I hear my old recordings I notice I was far less daring and imaginative in those passages that, because of deficiencies in the score, grant one more freedom. Today my thinking is simply more musical. But it is not my job to make that judgement! Gergely Fazekas

THURSDAY 9 APRIL, 19.30

SATURDAY 11 APRIL, 15.30

SATURDAY 11 APRIL, 19.45

GRAND HALL

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO EVGENI KOROLIOV PIANO RECITAL

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA BAROQUE RECITAL

J. S. Bach: Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (BWV 903) Mozart: Fantasia in C minor (K. 475) Mozart: Sonata in C minor (K. 457) Beethoven: Sonata in E major, op. 110 Beethoven: Sonata in C minor, op. 111

Händel: Concerto grosso in F major, op. 3/4 J. S. Bach: Double Concerto in C minor (BWV 1060) Corelli: Concerto grosso in F major, op. 6/2 Vivaldi: String Concerto in C major (RV 117) Vivaldi: Amor hai vinto (RV 683) Telemann: Violin Concerto in A major ( TWV 51:A4, ‘The Frogs’) Vivaldi: Cessate, omai cessate (RV 684)

Evgeni Koroliov (piano) Evgeni Koroliov, one of the most significant Bach pianists of our day, had his ‘Bach epiphany’ at the age of 8 in Moscow in 1957 when he heard Glenn Gould play. If there were a pianist whose analytic approach might be compared to Gould’s, then Koroliov certainly would be a candidate. On the other hand, Koroliov exhibits none of Gould’s outrageous eccentricities. At the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire he was a student of Lev Oborin, but he also attended classes by Maria Yudina and Heinrich Neuhaus. In 1976 he moved to Yugoslavia with his wife (who was of Macedonian origin), and then he emigrated to the West. He has been teaching piano at the Hamburg School of Music since 1978, where György Ligeti was one of his erstwhile colleagues. For this recital the artist, a well-known figure for domestic audiences, selects from classical piano works: Bach’s virtuoso Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, perhaps Mozart’s most ‘Beethovian’ piece, the Fantasia and Sonata in C minor (these two pieces are a pair: although they were written separately, Mozart published them in a single volume), and two Beethoven sonatas of cult significance. Tickets: HUF 4 000, 5 000, 6 000, 8 000, 10 000 Organizer: Jakobi Ltd. 74

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST Brahms: Tragic Overture, op. 81 Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major Haydn: Symphony No. 96 in D major (‘The Miracle’) István Lajkó (piano) Zugló Philharmonics Budapest Conductor: János Kovács In the autumn of 2014 István Lajkó gave a highly successful concert (with conductor Zoltán Kocsis) to conclude his doctoral studies at the Liszt Academy, at which he performed the solo in Scriabin’s Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor. This time the youthful artist, mentioned as being one of the most sensitive and intellectual pianists of his generation, performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. Ravel struggled with the concerto for more than two years; as a result of the lengthy and challenging work he formulated the oftquoted thought which states: “Writing music is seventy-five per cent intellectual activity.” However, none of Ravel’s difficulties can be felt in this highly popular piece, with the movements – deeply infused with jazz influences – following naturally one after the other. The piano concerto on the programme of the Zugló Philharmonics Budapest concert (under the baton of János Kovács) is bookended by a sombre symphonic work and a light symphonic work. Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 100, 2 500 Organizer: Zugló Philharmonics Budapest

Xavier Sabata (counter-tenor) Bojan Čičić (violin) Sigrid T’Hooft (Baroque gesture) Alfredo Bernardini (oboe) Budapest Festival Orchestra Conductor: Jonathan Cohen For this occasion the historical ensemble of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, under second conductor of Les Arts Florissants, Jonathan Cohen, present Baroque works. The concert offers a cross-section of concertos from the first half of the 18th century by the most important composers of the genre: Corelli, Vivaldi, Telemann, Händel and Bach. The violin solo is performed by the finest Croatian Baroque violinist of our day, Bojan Čičić, who regularly features in leading early music ensembles and knows everything about authentic period violin playing. Besides the concertos there are two Vivaldi cantatas, featuring the highly suggestive voice of Catalan star countertenor Xavier Sabata. The whole performance is lended totally authenticity by the fact that the greatest expert on Baroque stage gesture, Sigrid T’Hooft, helped prepare the production. Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 500, 4 400, 6 300, 10 500 Organizer: Budapest Festival Orchestra

SUNDAY 12 APRIL, 11.00

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS SHEET MUSIC FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS Gregorian chants, works by Dufay, Josquin, Beethoven, Webern and Kurtág György Déri (cello) András Kemenes (piano) A:N:S Chorus Conductor and narrator: János Bali

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL DEZSŐ RÁNKI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST MOZART’S PIANO CONCERTOS 1 Mozart: Piano Concerto in E-flat major (K. 449) Mozart: Piano Concerto in B major (K. 450) Mozart: Symphony in G minor (K. 550) Dezső Ránki (piano) Concerto Budapest Conductor: András Keller

What is a viola doing in the orchestra if it rarely gets a melody and it does not play the bass either? Why is a conductor needed when sometimes the orchestra gets along fine without him? What do opera directors do and would they be missed by the singers and audience if they were not there? What is the role of the score in classical music when many music cultures (folk music, jazz, Gregorian, etc.) managed and still manage without it? The Liszt Academy series for young people seeks answers to these and many other questions. Now on the third occasion of the series children will be guided through the intricacies of European sheet music by János Bali, flautist, teacher and leader of the A:N:S Chorus, which has a medieval and Renaissance repertoire. For instance, he talks about the various dots and dashes that first appeared some 1,200 years ago in Gregorian manuscripts and which over a very long time morphed into the score notation we know today. We also find out what there is in music that the score cannot tell us, how composers struggled to write down on paper their thoughts as accurately as possible, and what experiments were conducted in the 20 th century to go beyond traditional sheet music notation.

In 2015 we mark the 259th anniversary of Mozart’s birth and the 224th anniversary of his death; in other words, 2015 is the year when nobody will celebrate Mozart apart from those who care not that ‘Mozart Years’ are round-numbered anniversaries. Concerto Budapest, led by Dezső Ránki and András Keller, belong to the latter group of devotees, so they decided that during 12 April – a day that had no significance whatsoever in the life of Mozart – they would perform the two most important symphonies of his oeuvre, along with four of the finest piano concertos in the repertoire. The first concert programme features the piano concertos in E-flat major and B major, which were composed immediately after each other in February 1784. Mozart himself called the former one of his most special works, while the latter can stand its ground with any symphony thanks to its astoundingly rich woodwind parts. Partnering these two piano concertos is the grand symphony in the Mozartian tragic key, G minor. At one time Johannes Brahms owned the composer’s original score of this work, which he called “the crown of his manuscript collection.”

Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: NKA

Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 100, 3 900, 4 900 Organizer: Palace of Arts, Liszt Academy Concert Centre 75

SUNDAY 12 APRIL, 15.30

SUNDAY 12 APRIL, 19.30

GRAND HALL

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL DEZSŐ RÁNKI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST MOZART’S PIANO CONCERTOS 2 Mozart: Piano Concerto in G major (K. 453) Mozart: Piano Concerto in C minor (K. 491) Mozart: Symphony in C major (K. 551, ‘Jupiter’) Dezső Ránki (piano) Concerto Budapest Conductor: András Keller

Details on page 74.

In one single day Dezső Ránki and Concerto Budapest, led by András Keller, perform four Mozart piano concertos and two late Mozart symphonies at two concerts in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. This enterprise has no particular ‘hook’ other than a passion for performing Mozart (although by coincidence, Mozart completed the Piano Concerto in G major, which is performed at the second concert, on 12 April exactly 251 years ago). We cannot be grateful enough to them for offering us a Mozart feast on a simple Sunday in April, and particularly that they perform the most significant pieces of an oeuvre that is certainly not lacking in masterpieces as it is. In addition to the G major piano concerto (apparently Mozart’s pet starling could whistle the theme of the final movement), there is the demonic C minor piano concerto, and then the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony in C major, lifting us out of the depths and into the firmament. This is the work that perfectly encapsulates the melody-oriented musical language of the First Viennese School with the scientific polyphony of bygone Baroque tradition.

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 500, 4 400, 6 300, 10 500 Organizer: Budapest Festival Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 100, 3 900, 4 900 Organizer: Palace of Arts, Liszt Academy Concert Centre

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA BAROQUE RECITAL Händel: Concerto grosso in F major, op. 3/4 J. S. Bach: Double Concerto in C minor (BWV 1060) Corelli: Concerto grosso in F major, op. 6/2 Vivaldi: String Concerto in C major (RV 117) Vivaldi: Amor hai vinto (RV 683) Telemann: Violin Concerto in A major ( TWV 51:A4, ‘The Frogs’) Vivaldi: Cessate, omai cessate (RV 684) Xavier Sabata (counter-tenor) Bojan Čičić (violin) Sigrid T’Hooft (Baroque gesture) Alfredo Bernardini (oboe) Budapest Festival Orchestra Conductor: Jonathan Cohen

DEZSŐ RANKI © ANDREA FELVÉGI

TUESDAY 14 APRIL, 19.00

WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

MASTERS OF THE ORCHESTRA GYÖRGY VASHEGYI & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Händel: Theodora (HWV 68)

JAZZ IT! KRISZTIÁN OLÁH TWO FORMATIONS Krisztián Oláh (piano) Vilmos Schildkraut (bass) Dániel Serei (drums) Gergő Bille (trumpet, flugelhorn) Bálint Uher-Győrffy (saxophones) Krisztián Ördög (saxophones) Gábor Barbinek (trombone) Krisztián Oláh has been playing piano since the age of five. Currently he is a student of Károly Binder in the jazz department of the Liszt Academy. Krisztián started playing jazz in the footsteps of his father, Kálmán Oláh, and as they say, “blood is thicker than water.” In 2013 Krisztián Oláh won the prize for best soloist at the Targu Mures Jazz Competition, and in 2014 he came in the top four at the International Jazz Piano Competition, Nottingham. He founded his trio in 2012. The other two musicians, bass player Vilmos Schildkraut and drummer Dániel Serei, are also from the Liszt Academy. Their concerts include both jazz standards and their own compositions. The second part of the concert features another formation, inasmuch as four wind instrumentalists (all fellow students) join them to show what opportunities there are at the beginning of the 21 st century for seven young artists playing on the frontier between composed and improvised music. Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra Students of the Vocal Department and Chorus (choral director: Csaba Somos) Conductor: György Vashegyi “For me, Theodora is perhaps Händel’s greatest dramatic composition, an opus magnum of the Baroque period that stands alongside the most significant works of Purcell, Bach and Rameau: it was an honour for us that we could present it in Hungary in November 2004.” This quotation from a few years ago is from György Vashegyi, one of the most important figures in period performance practice in Hungary and an artist who has premiered several Händel compositions here. Now he has undertaken a task of no lesser weight: the performance of Händel’s Theodora – which when first played proved unpopular, but according to his own opinion is one of the composer’s most successful works – together with students of the Liszt Academy and after months of rehearsals. This late work (the last but one oratorio written by Händel, debuting in 1750), which is filled with grandiose choral parts and impressively rich melodious arias, represents a serious challenge to any professional ensemble, so the very act of undertaking this enterprise is worthy of attention in itself.

GYÖRGY VASHEGYI

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 700, 2 800, 3 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre The Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra is supported by Friends of Liszt Academy of Music. The concert series of the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra is supported by Erste Bank. 77

DARRYL HALL / KÁLMÁN OLÁH EUROPEAN– AMERICAN QUINTET (9 OCTOBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA

HOLLAND BAROQUE SOCIETY (21 SEPTEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / LÁSZLÓ MUDRA 78

ANDREA DE VITIS – WINNER OF THE IST BUDAPEST INTERNATIONAL GUITAR COMPETITION (8 OCTOBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ZOLTÁN TUBA

ANASTASIA RAZVALYAEVA (3 OCTOBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / LÁSZLÓ MUDRA

CARACAS YOUTH ORCHESTRA (11 NOVEMBER 2014) © LISZT ACADEMY / ÁKOS STILLER 79

THURSDAY 16 APRIL, 18.00

FRIDAY 17 APRIL, 19.00

SATURDAY 18 APRIL, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL PIIA KOMSI & PÉTER NAGY SONG RECITAL Songs by Schubert, Zemlinsky, Schönberg, Webern, Cage, Kurtág and Jeney Piia Komsi (soprano) Péter Nagy (piano)

WORLD VOICE DAY 2015 The international initiative World Voice Day started in 1999. Its purpose is to draw attention to the human voice: to show the significance that one of the most important ‘tools’ in communication between people – and indeed in music – has in our everyday lives. The programme in Budapest showcases a series of scientific lectures, sound training presentations and musical productions, featuring erstwhile talent show winner and virtuoso whistler Tamás Hacki, who is currently university professor at the Regensburg medical clinic; Andrea Meláth, head of the Liszt Academy department of vocal studies; and other recognized singers representing the most varied of musical styles. Free tickets can be requested from the Liszt Academy box office. Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 80

Possessor of an extremely mobile, bright voice with dazzling coloraturas, Finnish soprano Piia Komsi has played the roles of Brünnhilde (in Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung), chief of secret police (in György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre), as well as being one of very few who have both soprano roles in The Magic Flute (Pamina and Queen of the Night) in her repertoire. She feels equally at home in Baroque operas as she does in experimental avant-garde, so it comes as no surprise to hear that several modern composers have written material expressly for her voice. Piia Komsi began her music studies as a cellist, playing in the Avanti Chamber Orchestra and Finnish National Opera Orchestra for several years. She benefits from her instrumental background to this day, having appeared in several works in which she has both sung and played cello. Her twin, Anu Komsi, has similar vocal skills. EsaPekka Salonen wrote the grand orchestral work Wing on Wing with them in mind; it has been performed all over the world since its premiere in 2004. Piia Komsi is in contact with several Hungarian composers – for example, György Kurtág and Péter Eötvös – and in Budapest in 2013 she presented Zoltán Jeney’s song cycle Songs of Innocence and Experience, written for poems by William Blake. Organizer: Palace of Arts, Liszt Academy Concert Centre

LEVENTE SZÖRÉNYI 70 Levente Gyöngyösi: Symphony No. 4 Levente Szörényi: Song on the Miraculous Deer – suite Levente Szörényi: Enough MR Choir (choral director: Zoltán Pad) Lajos Miller, Pál Feke (vocals) MR Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Gergely Kesselyák Frontman of the band Illés and composer of countless hits and many rock operas (including Stephen, the King) Levente Szörényi has turned 70. The Liszt Academy hosts a concert celebrating the artist with works that regularly transgress the boundary between classical and pop. The programme includes two of his pieces from 2003 which utilise classical apparatuses: an orchestral suite of the music written for the animation film by Marcell Jankovics; and Elég volt (‘Enough’), a choral cantata composed to the words of Albert Wass. The first half of the concert is given over to the 4th symphony of a young composer and Illés fan Levente Gyöngyösi. Gyöngyösi, holder of the Erkel, BartókPásztory and Artisjus Prizes, is considered a leading composer of his generation. His opera Gólyakalifa (‘The Stork Caliph’) was presented in the Hungarian State Opera in 2005; he wrote the 3rd Symphony at the request of the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 2012; and the percussion ensemble Amadinda premiered his percussion work Sinfonia concertante in 2013. Organizer: Zikkurat Stage Agency

“THE ESSENCE OF OPERA IS MAGIC” The Finnish coloratura soprano Piia Komsi has a repertoire that extends from Mozart and Wagner to Ligeti and Thomas Adès. Performing at the Liszt Academy, her unique blend of naturalness, Scandinavian directness, perfect command of technique based on her classical singing, and her stage presence, as well as her “madness” in contemporary works, makes her one of the most exciting phenomena in international opera.

It was you who personally answered our interview request. We did not have to agree with an agent or impresario on a time to telephone, we simply sent you an email. Is a 21st-century star soprano really so approachable? It is a cliché but the world has really changed – this much is obvious, I think – in the era of Twitter and Facebook. In my view it could not be any other way, given that singers are now very much more in the public view than they were previously. The perspectives of the audience have changed, too. Our productions and achievements as performers can be judged instantly: almost everything is uploaded onto the internet. So it is not like in the days when critics cast judgement and it was only the press and recordings which provided points of reference for the public. What is actually interesting is that the repertoire is pretty much the same as it was fifty years ago. Haven't the voices changed? When I was a little girl growing up Maria Callas was the primary icon. I spent my youth listening to Callas. And I believe you can still only train opera singer voices through the classics, with tried and tested scales and the romantic coloratura repertoire. This is true even for someone like me who sings a lot of contemporary works. Just because singing contemporary music can require wild and truly unaccustomed sounds does not mean that you do not have to be able to sing. For the more extreme voice colours, you need even more classically-based vocal exercises, otherwise you can very easily lose your voice. The basis of these ‘tricks’ is perfect control: only that way can you take risks by shouting or using funny sounds. The technique, the vocal training, is the same as fifty years ago. The difference is in the interpretation of emotions, in how we communicate to the audience theatrically. So how has the staging of things changed?

PIIA KOMSI

Static performances where the ‘singer stands centre stage and starts singing’ really no longer interest anyone. By the same token, I don't think that you can win over an audience with just circus style variety. I believe in opera directors who understand music. And I believe in stage choreography that concentrates on musicality so that both singer and music can succeed. Also, I do like directors who are aware of the limits of singers. I have a colleague for whom dance or stage acrobatics pose no problem, but there are extremely well-trained singers with marvellous voices for whom this just does not work. You cannot expect them to sing an aria while doing a somersault. So stage movement and proper acting is now obligatory – and not just because it has become increasingly difficult to pay for monumental 81

“THE ESSENCE OF OPERA IS MAGIC”

sets. I think it is not just me that finds performances where the singers just stand and sing anachronistic. Young singers are trained for this, but this is why you have to be careful. The voice, the music, the singing must not get lost. My very worst memories of directors are those who jerked us about like marionettes. For me, freedom is vitally important so I can express my personal feelings of the situation on stage to my best. For this, you need a director to show the way. So you feel more at home with partially staged performances when singers perform a work in concert performances? I do not like them at all, because in my opinion concert performances don't work. Why? Because everything can be seen. Everything is on stage. The illusion is missing, the theatre. There is the orchestra and the singer. The viewer sees the faces of the musician, how they play, every movement can be followed by eye. The magic is lost, and magic is the essence of opera. I know that there are economic considerations, but staging does not have to be expensive – look how contemporary dance works with very minimal sets. Of course, it is another story entirely when singers perform with chamber ensembles or give aria evenings. The international press tends to focus on your performances of the works of contemporary composers. Is there an audience for contemporary opera? There is a small but enthusiastic following for the experimental. Most interesting of all is that audiences in Asia are very open to it. I've encountered this in Australia, China, Korea and Japan. Probably because unlike Europe, the opera audience is primarily composed of young people. They have no preconceptions about the genre, so they find music in both the classical and contemporary. Because contemporary composers often take things to extremes, they are often regarded as inaccessible. Of course, I don't have an insight into everything. But on the basis of my own experience, I feel it is very important for young people to make their statement. Time will tell if something will last or not. Undoubtedly though, certain composers have no regard for the audience or the performers. But opera is a stage genre. Cooperation is indispensable. We cannot subordinate everything to the whim of the experimental creator. Tamás Vajna

SUNDAY 19 APRIL, 19.30

THURSDAY 23 APRIL, 19.30

GRAND HALL

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL HAGEN QUARTET SNÉTBERGER-JORMIN-BARON TRIO Ferenc Snétberger (acoustic guitar) Anders Jormin (bass) Joey Baron (drums, percussion) Ferenc Snétberger is well into his third decade of playing and still going strong. He has all the talent and the finesse at his fingertips to have been able to play the guitar like Al Di Meola or George Benson. Yet he chose a more difficult route, seeking his own sound: an inimitable, intimate sound in which we find traces of his classical music training, Roma tradition, flamenco and jazz. This has lifted him above the crowd, putting him on the same plane as greats such as singer Bobby McFerrin and legendary bass guitarist Richard Bona. He wrote the Holocaust-related In Memory of My People for guitar and orchestra, while interpreting – dramatically and authentically – contemporary Italian composer Luciano Berio (Sequenza XI). In 2011 he founded the Snétberger Music Talent Center, which provides music training to disadvantaged children. His new trio, completing an album for ECM, includes two legends: Swedish bassist Anders Jormin (a teacher at Göteborg University), who has jammed with Charles Lloyd, Tomasz Stańko and Bobo Stenson; and American avantgarde drummer Joey Baron, a key element of the John Zorn formation and somebody who has played with Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Al Jarreau and Dizzy Gillespie, plus icons of pop like Michael Jackson and David Bowie. Tickets: HUF 3 700, 5 100, 6 500, 7 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Mozart: String Quartet in D major (K. 499, ‘Hoffmeister’) Jörg Widmann: String Quartet No. 2 Mozart: String Quartet in D major (K. 575, ‘Prussian’) Hagen Quartet: Lukas Hagen, Rainer Schmidt (violin); Veronika Hagen (viola); Clemens Hagen (cello) The Salzburg-based string quartet continues the tradition of family chamber music performance. Four young siblings from the Hagen family first sat down to play together in the early 1980s. Later their approach was shaped by masters such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gidon Kremer; they have also worked with György Kurtág, Maurizio Pollini, Krystian Zimmerman and Mitsuko Uchida. The biggest record company in Germany has handled the recordings of the Hagen Quartet – 45 CDs in all – for two decades. They recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of their formation. They cultivate a full repertoire of the genre from Haydn to the modern day, and although their Budapest appearance does not feature anything by Haydn, the spirit of the master is still present. Between 2003 and 2006 Jörg Widmann wrote the String Quartet No. 2. The Keller String Quartet undertook the world premiere of the piece (and of its revised version). This single composition, consisting of a monumental single movement, appears to be inspired by Haydn’s famous cycle The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross.

HAGEN QUARTET © HARALD HOFFMANN

Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 100, 3 900, 4 900 Organizer: Palace of Arts, Liszt Academy Concert Centre 83

FRIDAY 24 APRIL, 19.30

SATURDAY 25 APRIL, 19.30

GRAND HALL

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Wagner: Siegfried Idyll Schubert: Symphony No. 5 in B flat major (D. 485) Copland: Quiet City Haydn: Symphony No. 80 in D minor Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA © LARRY FINK

With more than 70 albums behind them and nearly 50 works composed specially for them, Grammy-winning New Yorkbased Orpheus Chamber Orchestra have consistently ranked as one of the most important chamber orchestras in the world since they were formed in 1972. They hold a regular concert series in Carnegie Hall; their tours have taken in every continent except the Antarctic; they have worked together with virtually every major soloist in the past four decades; and, true to their core philosophy, they work democratically, without a conductor. The principle of democratic decision-making is important for them from a practical aspect, but it is also an ideal that they try to pass on to the younger generation in their teaching programmes. Their Liszt Academy concert encompasses one of Haydn’s ‘Sturm und Drang’ symphonies, No. 80 in D minor, and the 19-year-old Schubert’s B flat major symphony, with shades of Mozart. Complementing these works are a Romantic and a 20th century masterpiece: a marvellous miniature by Wagner, the Siegfried Idyll, which was written for his wife Cosima after the birth of their son; and Aaron Copland’s Quiet City, a concert piece created out of stage incidental music. Tickets: HUF 2 100, 3 500, 4 900, 6 900 Organizer: Palace of Arts, Liszt Academy Concert Centre

GERGELY BOGÁNYI, GÁBOR BOLDOCZKI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST J. S. Bach: Orchestral Suite in C major (BWV 1066) Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1, op. 35 Fazıl Say: Trumpet Concerto, op. 31 (Hungary premiere) Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major, op. 70 Gergely Bogányi (piano), Gábor Boldoczki (trumpet) Concerto Budapest Conductor: Ádám Medveczky Two fine artists assist at this exciting concert of rarely-performed works given by Concerto Budapest, led by András Keller. Exciting because Gergely Bogányi, up till now known as a major performer of mainly Romantic works, is playing Shostakovich. He plays the piano concerto of the Soviet-Russian composer, whose Neobaroque characteristics match the beautiful Bach suite that starts the programme. Fazil Say, world-famed pianist, jazz musician and improvisationalist par excellence, wrote the Trumpet Concerto (2010) for young Hungarian artist Gábor Boldoczki, considered to be worthy successor to Maurice André. The work, which demands extraordinary virtuosity, draws on the composer’s Turkish folk music roots and attraction to jazz. After the intermission, the orchestra, under the baton of Kossuth Prize-winner Ádám Medveczky, perform the work that the composer called a joyous, merry piece, and which is often compared to symphonies by Haydn for its playfulness and wit. Tickets: HUF 3 300, 4 800, 6 500 Organizer: Concerto Budapest

Panther and lily (1930-1933) ÂŠ LAJOS VAJDA 85

SUNDAY 26 APRIL, 19.30

TUESDAY 28 APRIL, 18.00

GRAND HALL

20TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT OF THE PANNONIA SACRA CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL PURCELL CHOIR 25 J. S. Bach: Mass in B minor (BWV 232) Emőke Baráth, Ágnes Pintér (soprano); Péter Bárány, Zoltán Gavodi (countertenor); Zoltán Megyesi (tenor); Domonkos Blazsó (bass) Purcell Choir Orfeo Orchestra (on period instruments) Conductor: György Vashegyi

ORFEO ORCHESTRA, PURCELL CHOIR © LISZT ACADEMY / SÁNDOR BENKŐ

Choral works by 20th century Hungarian composers, Renaissance and Baroque dances performed by recorder ensembles and solo instrumental pieces Ensembles of students, parents, teachers, former students of Pannonia Sacra Catholic Primary School Conductor: Andrea Blazsek

The Purcell Choir, founded by György Vashegyi and one of the foremost formations of Hungarian choral culture, celebrate their 25th anniversary. Perhaps nothing better reflects the quality of the chorus and their leader (who for many years have together enriched enthusiasts of early music performance with astonishing accomplishments) than the fact that René Jacobs took the B minor mass, perhaps the most demanding work in the choral repertoire, on tour with them in 2014. Now, at their birthday concert, we too can hear them perform this major composition, which can also be considered a summary of the Bach oeuvre, and on which the master worked in the final period before he died. In it he used movements from his numerous earlier cantatas, providing a sort of composer’s selection of the best of an oeuvre that is outstanding in itself.

This is the 20th occasion on which the choruses and recorder ensembles of Pannonia Sacra Catholic Primary School, along with the chorus and orchestra made up of parents, teachers and former students of the school, have created a music-making community. Right from the beginning, artistic education filled an important place in the life of the institution, founded under the direction of singing teacher and headmaster György Gere in 1991. The Kodály principle of singing every day is put into practice at the school. The children can take part in the work of four choruses, and they learn to play the recorder in music classes. At the initiative of parents, and with their help, the first charity concert was staged in 1995, and featured instrument-playing parents and the school choir. For a decade and a half the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy hosted this concert every year, transforming the venue into an outstanding musical festival.

Tickets: HUF 1 990, 2 990, 3 990, 4 990 Organizer: Orfeo Music Foundation

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 600, 2 000, 2 500 Organizer: BKI Foundation

INDIVIDUALITY AND HOMOGENEITY One of the most important Hungarian choirs, the internationally respected Purcell Choir, was founded exactly a quarter of a century ago by György Vashegyi. Now teaching at the Liszt Academy, we asked him about the formation of his choir, his ideal sonority and his future plans on the occasion of the Purcell Choir's birthday concert – a performance of Bach's Mass in B minor in the Liszt Academy Grand Hall.

Do you remember how the Purcell Choir was formed 25 years ago? In 1986 I met Helmuth Rilling and visited him on a study tour for the first time in the autumn of 1987 when East Germany still existed. In the summer of 1988, Rilling invited John Eliot Gardiner to Stuttgart to hold a masterclass. At that time, although I had been accepted into the Liszt Academy, I had not yet started my studies, but I took part in Gardiner's Stuttgart course. His own group, the Monteverdi Choir, exerted a tremendous influence on me and when the first semester began at the Liszt Academy, I began thinking that I would also like to create something similar. We gave our first concert on May 1st 1990, on the very day of the first parliamentary session of the new democratically-elected parliament. What brings stability to the choir? Hungarian choral culture is unbelievably rich, but it adheres to a quite different ideal. What is most important is homogeneity: that each vocal part – and indeed the whole choir – should sing with a unified sound. This means that the singers cannot really rely on their own personalities, so they try to avoid soloistic vocal colour. It is rather like a French park: if it sticks out, it gets chopped down! Please don't misunderstand me, this is not a value judgement, because Hungarian choral life has received considerable international acknowledgement (through competitions and the like), which proves that it embodies fantastic values. But here at the Purcell Choir, following the English model, we believe the active and individual voice is important, as well as the individual responsibility of the musicians. Of course, the activities of individuals must be aimed in the right musical direction, but when this happens, a different kind of homogeneity is created – that resembling an English park. And the proof of the pudding is that René Jacobs invited the Purcell Choir to a production in Norway of Bach's B Minor Mass. Will there be similar projects? Jacobs was very satisfied with us and we are planning a continuation. In January we will be working with both Ádám Fischer and Philippe Herreweghe, and we have been trying for years to establish some sort of collaboration with Gardiner. Otherwise, we will be performing Bach's B minor mass at The Purcell Choir's birthday concert (April 26th 2015) at the Liszt Academy. We sang it for the first time fifteen years ago, and we believe it is worthwhile showing again what we can do with the piece, especially as we are now on the verge of ‘adulthood’! Gergely Fazekas 87

TUESDAY 28 APRIL, 19.00

WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL, 19.00

SOLTI HALL

TALENT OBLIGE MUSICIENS LIBRES Bálint Karosi: Trio Concerto for Cimbalom, Guitar and Harp Bálint Laczkó: Times of change II Bálint Laczkó: ‘Searching for Manuel de Falla’ Musiciens Libres Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra “If only the artist of the future would mark out the goal within himself, and not without, and virtuosity would be the means alone and not the ultimate aim. If only he always kept in mind that although according to the saying, noblesse oblige, but at least as much, and rather far more, than nobility: GÉNIE OBLIGE (Genius obliges)!” Thus wrote Ferenc Liszt about Paganini in 1840, and he himself was an example to posterity of what talent demands of an artist: above all else, the sharing of talent with the world. The series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre, which started in 2013, provides the opportunity for several students or ensembles of the Liszt Academy to present themselves every half year. Following their introductory concert last year this is another chance to hear Musiciens Libres. Members of Musiciens Libres, as the name suggests, are trustees of musical freedom. They believe that there are no barriers between styles: that classic, contemporary, jazz and folk music all represent lasting values. They are the cream of their generation; they number a jazz singer, folk cimbalom player and several classical musicians. The concert, which includes Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra, presents works by two young composers. Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 88

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC MÁRIA PETRÁS & SZIGONY ENSEMBLE Mária Petrás (vocals) Róbert Kerényi (flute) László Nyíri (violin) László Szlama (Moldavian lute) Ágoston Félix Benke (drums, Jew’s harp, harmonica) The dance house movement launched in the early 1970s is frequently associated with Transylvanian string music. There is no doubt that, at the beginning, attention was directed to these areas, but a good decade later the scope began to broaden. A lanky, ascetic-like, round-spectacled young man nicknamed ‘Szigony’ founded the legendary Tatros in 1988. Róbert Kerényi played a key role in teaching the public about Moldavian and Gyimes folk music and dance. Thousands found themselves under the thrall of dynamic round dances, archaic folk songs and folk melodies. Róbert Kerényi has been head of the Szigony orchestra since 1997. The formation follow the traditions of old rural orchestras, playing Gyimes and Moldavian Hungarian folk music. Their performances flow according to their own internal laws, as moments weave together into ten-minute ‘epics’. This concert selects from Moldavia’s most beautiful music: sacred chants, customary songs, ballads, songs from the spinning room and dance melodies. Their partner is Moldavian-born Mária Petrás, best known as permanent guest singer with Muzsikás. Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

MÁRIA PETRÁS

www.fidelio.hu

Ha komolyan szórakozik...

Kocsis Zoltán (FOTÓ: MARJAI JUDIT)

THURSDAY 30 APRIL, 19.00

SATURDAY 2 MAY, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK ON THE SPOT WOODWIND INSTRUMENTS Works by Lajtha, Ránki, Sáry, Mozart and Händel Teachers: György Lakatos (bassoon); Veronika Oross, Zsolt Romos, Erika Sebők, Béla Drahos (flute); István Varga, Béla Kovács, Zsolt Szatmári, Csaba Pálfi (clarinet); Gábor Dienes (oboe) Students: Zsófia Bánki Berta, Dominika Ács, Mária Kerner, Bernadett Bálint, Eszter Kovács, Aliz Szeitl, Viktória Metykó, Rebeka Csuhaj-Barna, Ágnes Tóth, Eszter Kovács, Júlia Flóra Szidonya

Reger: Symphonic Poems after Arnold Böcklin, op. 128 Dohnányi: Concert Piece for Cello and Orchestra, op. 12 Elgar: Enigma Variations, op. 36 Gavriel Lipkind (cello) Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok Conductor: Klaus Arp

‘Fantasy for carved wood’ – this could be the concert’s poetic title. ‘Woody, but not wooden’ – this might work as a sort of motto. ‘Presentation of the Woodwind Section’ – this is the description of the event on 30th April, in the course of which Liszt Academy woodwind students and their teachers play for the audience. The team from the wind department, headed by bassoonist György Lakatos, demonstrate in a variety of formations – different quartets, quintets and other line-ups (for instance, a contrabassoon-piccolo duo) – just what these marvellous instruments – the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon – are capable of. The concert programme features László Lajtha’s woodwind quartet, György Ránki’s noteworthy quintet (Pentaerophonia), a piece for eight flutes by László Sáry and classics from Mozart and Händel.

There can be few globetrotting artists in the world who, in their 20s, would admit to themselves that it would be good to withdraw for a few years and to immerse themselves in work and study. But Israeli Gavriel Lipkind, born into a Russian family, did just this when, following his years of study in Tel Aviv, he honed his abilities at the prestigious academies in Frankfurt and Boston, and achieved high-ranking places in major world competitions. Although still only in his late 30s, he has played together with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Pinchas Zukerman and Yehudi Menuhin, and has appeared as soloist with the Israeli and Munich Philharmonics, as well as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In Budapest we can listen to Gavriel Lipkind’s interpretation of the beautifully lyrical work with which the youthful Ernő Dohnányi said a fond farewell to his terminally ill father. Max Reger is also of Dohnányi’s generation: perhaps his best known work is the suite inspired by the paintings of Arnold Böcklin, written in 1913. Similarly, Elgar’s mystic Enigma Variations is the British composer’s most popular composition.

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 3 200, 3 900, 4 500 Organizer: Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok

SUNDAY 3 MAY, 11.00

SUNDAY 3 MAY, 19.30

MONDAY 4 MAY, 19.00

GRAND HALL

MVM CONCERTS THREE FACES OF JÁNOS BALÁZS 2 FÉLIX LAJKÓ & JÁNOS BALÁZS Félix Lajkó (violin) János Balázs (piano)

UNDERSTANDABLE MUSIC DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK FERENC FRICSAY Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67 Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok Narrator and conductor: Gábor Hollerung The next performance in the informative series by Gábor Hollerung pays tribute to Ferenc Fricsay, one of the most important Hungarian conductors of the 20th century, who was born in 1914 and died prematurely in 1962. Fricsay graduated from the Liszt Academy in 1933, but he had to wait until 1947 for world fame when he premiered a contemporary opera at the Salzburg Festival following the last minute withdrawal of Klemperer. He worked in Berlin and Munich, toured with Yehudi Menuhin and Géza Anda, and from the 1950s recorded prodigiously as exclusive artist with Deutsche Grammophon: his discography features Mozart operas, Bartók works and, of course, symphonies by his greatest idol, Beethoven. Gábor Hollerung has chosen to remember the conductor (who some critics said combined the virtues of Toscanini and Furtwängler) with the 5th symphony, which gave the ailing Fricsay so much spiritual and mental energy. Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 300, 2 700 Organizer: Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok

János Balázs launched his international career at the age of 16 in 2005 when he won first prize at the international Liszt competition in Pécs. Over the next few years he triumphed at four international competitions and appeared in many capitals of Europe, as well as New York, Washington, Chicago and Aspen in the United States. He has played with top orchestras, recorded three complete Liszt albums, one in Hungary, one in Tokyo and the other in London. When just a secondary school student Félix Lajkó borrowed a violin and set off from the Voivodina region in the former Yugoslavia for Budapest, where he teamed up with the Dresch Quartet. Since then he has commuted between Budapest and Szabadka, representing and joining the mother country and Voivodina (Vajdaság). His first record was released 20 years ago, and he has worked – as musician and composer of stage and film music – with very many famous ensembles and personalities. His first zither disc made it into the Works Music Charts Europe top list in August and September 2012. The joint concerts of János Balázs and Félix Lajkó reinterpret contemporary music, while at the same time making it more listenable and comprehensible: at the end of their music-making they create an aura woven from harmonies that speaks directly to the heart of the audience. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 4 000, 5 000, 6 000, 8 000 Organizer: Jakobi Ltd.

VOICE, SO CLOSE ARIA EXAMINATION Opera arias and ensembles from the Baroque to the present day Andrea Brassói-Jőros, István Czikora, Anita Csóka, Anna Jánoshegyi, Ferenc Kristofori, Alexandra Ruszó, Xénia Sárkoziova, Luszine Szahakjan, Nóra Tatai, Anikó Vida, Zuo You Teachers: Éva Marton, Júlia Pászthy, Ingrid Kertesi, Magda Nádor, Katalin Halmai and Attila Kiss B. Conductor: Ádam Medveczky Head of department: Andrea Meláth The aria examination organized every May is a good example of the special place the Liszt Academy occupies in Hungarian higher education. While the exam results of the majority of universities survive only in the memories of professors and students and on the rarely turned pages of yearbooks, the aria exam of the department of vocal studies is open to everyone. It is just as much a challenge for students and teacher as it is an extraordinary aesthetic experience for everyone interested in the future of Hungarian artistic singing culture and visiting the Liszt Academy to hear the latest batch of young talents. At the aria exam (as from spring 2014 once again held in the refurbished Grand Hall) students present to the general public, live and with orchestral accompaniment under the baton of Ádám Medveczky, those arias they have studied during the year. Free tickets can be requested from the Liszt Academy box office. Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 91

TUESDAY 5 MAY, 19.30

THURSDAY 7 MAY, 19.30

GRAND HALL

ORCHESTRA IN THE CENTRE DÉNES VÁRJON & CONCERTO BUDAPEST

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, op. 23 Mussorgsky–Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition

J. S. Bach: Piano Concerto in D major (BWV 1054) Mendelssohn: Concerto for Two Pianos in E major (MWV O 5) J. S. Bach: Concerto for Two Pianos in C major (BWV 1061) Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op. 25

Miyuji Kaneko (piano) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi

Dénes Várjon, Izabella Simon (piano) Concerto Budapest Conductor: Hansjörg Schellenberger

Anyone with a Japanese father and Hungarian mother would call themselves half Hungarian, half Japanese. Not so the youthful pianist Miyuji Kaneko, who declares himself 100 per cent Hungarian and 100 per cent Japanese. His preparation and incandescence are similarly 200 per cent: despite his youth he has won several competitions and finished six albums, among them a Tchaikovsky piano concerto recorded with Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2013. In fact, it is the same work that we can hear in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy, together with maestro Kobayashi and the MÁV Symphony Orchestra. The concerto, in which through a stroke of genius Tchaikovsky switches the roles in the magical opening melody by making the piano accompany the orchestra, is one of the greatest challenges in the repertoire, as is the Mussorgsky piece orchestrated by Ravel, which demands extraordinary virtuosity from the orchestra.

Mendelssohn may have been among the first composers who marvelled at the ‘great’ Bach, although the musical world of the Romantic composer was also influenced by the First Viennese School as well as Baroque. The double piano work in the first half of the programme stands closer to the First Viennese School than to Romanticism; it was penned when he was 14 years old for himself and his sister Fanny. On the other hand, the piece in G minor dating from 1831, the time he was engaged with the Italian Symphony, is the work of a true Romantic composer. There could barely be better performers for the programme, which alternates between Bach and Mendelssohn, than the superb Hungarian pianist couple. As far as their superlative art is concerned, Izabella Simon and Dénes Várjon are two autonomous personalities, but their method of playing and their interpretation is based on compromise that brings harmony.

KEN-ICHIRO KOBAYASHI & MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Tickets: HUF 5 000, 6 000, 7 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 1 900, 3 100, 4 300, 5 400 Organizer: Concerto Budapest, Liszt Academy Concert Centre

DÉNES VÁRJON © LISZT ACADEMY / BALÁZS MOHAI

SAINT THOMAS CHURCH AND SCHOOL, LEIPZIG (DRAWING BY FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, 1843) © BPK / STAATSBIBLIOTHEK ZU BERLIN / RUTH SCHACHT

SATURDAY 9 MAY, 19.00

SATURDAY 9 MAY, 19.30

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

TALENT OBLIGE NYÁRI QUARTET Kodály: String Quartet No. 2, op. 10 Weiner: Pastoral, Fantasia and Fugue, op. 23 Bartók: String Quartet No. 1, op. 7 (BB 52) Nyári Quartet: Lászó Nyári, Géza Szajkó (violin); Kálmán Dráfi (viola) István Balázs (cello) 'Génie oblige!' Thus wrote Ferenc Liszt about Paganini in 1840, and he himself was an example to posterity of what talent demands of an artist: above all else, the sharing of talent with the world. The series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre, which started in 2013, provides the opportunity for several students or ensembles of the Liszt Academy to present themselves every half year. On this occasion the audience has the pleasure of listening to the Nyári Quartet, founded by Liszt Academy students in 2010. As chamber recital students of János Devich, they have won the national Dohnányi Chamber Music Competition twice, and they represented the Academy at the 2012 International Festival of Kyoto. First violinist László Nyári graduated as a student of Miklós Szenthelyi in the summer of 2013 and has already won several competitions. In 2013 the quartet took part in the 21st Pörtschach International Johannes Brahms Competition, winning the special prize in the chamber music category. Their concert programme comprises a work by each of three key figures from the teaching staff of the Liszt Academy. Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: NKA 94

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC DANCE HOUSE DAY The first dance house was held in the book club on Liszt Ferenc Square, not far from the Liszt Academy, on 6 May 1972. At the initiative of Béla Halmos, first violinist of the dance house movement, who died unexpectedly in 2013, the Hungarian Heritage House and the Circle have organized the Dance House Day every year since 2012, with the professional support of the civil organizations of the movement. Since then, many other locations have joined the Liszt Ferenc Square venue, from Adelaide to Nagyvázsony. The Liszt Academy concert crowns the day; the best of the movement, young and ageless alike, give a concert of a lifetime to prove the immortality of timeless Carpathian Basin folk music and the constantly rejuvenating vitality of the movement. Tickets: HUF 800, 1 200, 1 600, 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre, Department of Folk Music, Hungarian Heritage House, Hangvető

BÉLA HALMOS © MTI / PÉTER KOLLÁNYI

CMY

MOBILON IS > www.okosradio.hu

TEGYE KI A FÔKÉPERNYÔRE!

SUNDAY 10 MAY, 10.30; 15.00

WEDNESDAY 13 MAY, 19.30

FRIDAY 15 MAY, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

FRANZ LISZT CHAMBER ORCHESTRA STORY-TELLING MUSIC ENTERTAINING OR SERIOUS? L. Mozart: Divertimento in G major (‘Children’s Symphony’) Mozart: Divertimento in F major (K. 522 ‘A Musical Joke’) – 2nd and 4th movements Haydn: Symphony No. 94 in G major (‘Kettledrum’) – 2nd movement Rossini: William Tell – overture Bartók: Slightly Tipsy (BB 103/4) J. Strauss: Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, op. 214 J. Strauss: Pizzicato Polka, op. 449

Michael Collins (clarinet) Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra (artistic director: János Rolla)

Story-telling Music is perhaps the longest established ‘brand’ of music concerts in Hungary. Generations of children have been brought closer to classical music over the decades thanks to this concert series. This time popular compositions from the repertoire of the past 300 years are performed under the baton of Balázs Stauróczky, conductor at the Operetta Theatre and graduate of the Liszt Academy. They include Leopold Mozart’s so-called ‘Children’s Symphony’, his son Wolfgang’s parody on peasant musicians, and the extremely witty Haydn symphony movement famous for its surprising kettledrum beat. Tamás Lakner, professor at Pécs University and Liszt Prize-laureate, introduces the pieces.

Michael Collins is a top-ranked clarinettist. At the age of 16 he was voted the BBC’s Young Artist of the Year. When he was 22 he took to the stage of Carnegie Hall, and today he is the most employed wind soloist of the BBC Proms series. He performs one of the last and most beautiful compositions Mozart wrote for his instrument. He recently recorded the piece with the Russian National Orchestra under conductor Mikhail Pletnev. The similarly world-famous Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra have selected two specialities alongside the Mozart opus. Vanhal was one of the most recognized composers of the First Viennese School, and he is reputed to have played string quartets with his two contemporaries Mozart and Haydn. Interestingly, the Symphony in G minor was published in the same year, 1773, that Mozart composed his so-called ‘little’ Symphony in G minor. The string quartet in the same key by Norwegian Edvard Grieg was written exactly hundred years later, and its arrangement for string orchestra is rarely heard in the concert hall.

Tickets: HUF 1 500 Organizer: Filharmónia Magyarország Koncert és Fesztiválszervező Nkft.

Tickets: HUF 2 900, 4 200, 6 200, 7 900 Organizer: Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Balázs Stauróczky Narrator: Tamás Lakner

Johann Baptist Vanhal: Symphony in G minor, op. 17/2 Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A major (K. 622) Grieg: String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, op. 27

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE KRISTÓF BARÁTI & KLÁRA WÜRTZ BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO 1 Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Violin and Piano in C minor, op. 30/2 Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor, op. 23 Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, op. 30/3 Sonata for Violin and Piano in D major, op. 12/1 Kristóf Baráti (violin) Klára Würtz (piano) Pianist Klára Würtz, who resides in the Netherlands, and violinist Kristóf Baráti, who recently received the Kossuth Prize, play the complete Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano (ten in all) over three concerts on two consecutive days. They recently recorded the sonatas, and critics were unanimous in their enthusiasm for the results of this mammoth undertaking. Kristóf Baráti regularly appears on stage at the Liszt Academy, while Klára Würtz is perhaps less well known in Hungary. She considers herself lucky to have attended the Liszt Academy in the 1980s at the time Zoltán Kocsis, György Kurtág, Ferenc Rados and Pál Kadosa taught there; she also took part in master classes by András Schiff at Prussia Cove. Defining moments in her career were her win at the 1985 Ettore Pozzoli competition, Milan, the prize from the Dublin International Piano Competition (1988), and a contract she signed with Columbia Artists Management in 1991. She currently teaches at the Conservatory of Music in Utrecht. Tickets: HUF 1 700, 2 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

KRISTÓF BARÁTI & KLÁRA WÜRTZ © ZSÓFIA IMRIK

BEETHOVEN ‘RESET’ It was pure accident that led to Klára Würtz and Kristóf Baráti performing together. They played Beethoven, retained him on their programmes, and have now recorded all the composer's sonatas for violin and piano. The critics were very impressed, and in May they will present in three concerts in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy the material for their joint CD, which has been nominated for the German Recording Prize.

From the history of your collaboration, it seems than an accident may play a major role in an artistic career. Kristóf Baráti: In 2010 a friend invited me to a concert. I set off without having any notion that I would find myself on the podium. I remember that in the interval I was eating a sandwich in the bufé when I heard someone practising the piano part of the Spring Sonata. I was delighted that this piece was going to be performed and I wondered who the violinist might be. I did not suspect that it would be me. Shortly afterwards they called me and asked if I would be willing to play this work. When I asked where and when, they replied: “In twenty minutes, but it would be good if you could run through it a little with the artist first.” Luckily, I had my violin with me. Klára Würtz: Just half an hour before the performance, I learned that my concert partner's flight had been delayed and he wouldn’t be able to reach the concert hall in time. I thought: let's not give up, let's see if we can rescue the situation. But not only did we rescue things, the first few bars I played with Kristof marked the start of a collaboration of many years. After this very successful performance, we soon realised we should continue, and besides concerts we should make a recording together. We thought of Schubert and Schumann, but since our story began with Beethoven, we stayed with him. Talking of Beethoven, can you describe that joint vision that you felt was worthwhile committing to disc? KW: At the Liszt Academy, Pál Kadosa used to say that Beethoven always looks you straight in the face. His thinking is very direct and confrontational. And that similarly inspired both of us. We love capturing the whole of the work, thinking in terms of its structure and architecture. If I wanted to simplify, I would say neither of us faff around; we don't get lost in the details. Of course, that doesn't mean we can be superficial – there is no threat of that, since I grew up with the lessons of Kurtág and Rados, who uncovered every bar of a work with surgical precision. KB: Let's ‘reset’ and wipe the dust off all the tradition which has accreted on works like the Spring Sonata and on slow movements generally over the past two centuries. We have to thank the historical performance movement, which has placed back into centre stage the structure of the work and has bid farewell to the egocentric approach and its obsession with instrumental perfection. This obsession, which culminated in the forties and fifties, emphasised those sections in the work that allowed instrumental perfection to be flaunted, in doing so making the mechanisms of action intended by the composer much harder to communicate successfully.

KW: The concept we represent is more habit than ideology. That we instinctively have similar visions in these questions is shown by the fact that we both very much admire the work of Toscanini. Whether he was conducting Italian operas or Brahms, the musical material is transparent, and remains clear amid even the greatest moments of ecstasy. Chamber music receives a prominent role in the Liszt Academy's concert offering. What is it that makes a chamber production competitive with a large scale symphony concert? KW: I don't think there is any sense distinguishing between a good chamber music concert and a good symphonic one. Nor should a chamber musician and a soloist be two separate types of artists. At the highest levels of chamber music performance, a soloist background is required, and vice versa. From this point of view, I feel lucky that I was able to study at the Liszt Academy in the eighties, where it was natural for me to attend two lessons a week of chamber music with the legendary Professors Rados and Kurtág. As a teacher at the Utrecht Music College, I saw that chamber music is of fundamental importance in developing acoustic sense. As part of Liszt Academy's ‘Live Complete Edition’ series, you are performing all of Beethoven's sonatas in a mini marathon. What is your opinion about this increasingly popular genre: does it justify its existence? KW: I think that experiments along these lines do not always serve the works' interest. Every work is a separate world – it creates a round whole – and if we place too many next to one another, after a while they can extinguish each other. That is not to mention that that it also wastefully drains the performer's and the audience's attention and stamina. The structure that we have compiled for our series aims for the ‘golden mean’: it creates the opportunity to survey the works without overburdening the listener. KB: The sonata cycle is definitely a good subject for such a concert series, because in these works all of Beethoven's many characters are thrown into relief. For example, the youthful style is more virtuosic, lighter, in places even Haydenesque, but certainly no less deserving of attention. And we find the great dramatic side in the Sonata in C minor and the Kreutzer Sonata. In the G major sonata opus 96, we are afforded a glimpse of Beethoven's late lyrical, more mature character which represents such an important cadence to Beethoven's art. To experience this spectrum in the course of two days is a fantastic thing for both performers and audience. Péter Lorenz

FRIDAY 15 MAY, 19.00

SATURDAY 16 MAY, 11.00

SATURDAY 16 MAY, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE KRISTÓF BARÁTI & KLÁRA WÜRTZ BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO 2 Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Violin and Piano in F major, op. 24 Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, op. 96 Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major, op. 30/1

Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major, op. 12/2 Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat major, op. 12/3 Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major, op. 47 (‘Kreutzer’)

Kristóf Baráti (violin) Klára Würtz (piano)

Gergely Kesselyák first met Russian composer Alexey Rybnikov when the Hungarian was director of the ‘Bartók +’ opera festival in Miskolc. Born in 1945, the composer was a student of Khachaturian. He has written scores for more than one hundred films and has devoted enormous energy to implanting the genres of musical and rock-opera in Russia. Rybnikov composed a grandiose stage work after Tolstoy on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino. Not only is he known as a composer of film and stage music, but of instrumental works, too. Prior to his composition Capriccio, we hear one of Tchaikovsky’s rarely performed works, the orchestral arrangement of Memories of a Dear Place (originally for violin-piano), and after the intermission, the Dante Symphony, one of Ferenc Liszt’s most ambitious orchestral works.

“I have to say that no matter how many other sets of Beethoven’s complete violin sonatas you may have – unless you are a crazed fan of Heifetz, Grumiaux, Francescatti, Menuhin, Stern or Szeryng recordings – you might as well give them away to friends, because once you’ve heard Baráti and Würtz, you’ll never listen to anyone else again.” This is how the critic of American Fanfare magazine enthused over the four-disc series of Kossuth Prize-laureate Kristóf Baráti and Klára Würtz, teacher at the Conservatory of Music in Utrecht, which contains the complete violinpiano sonatas of Beethoven. Now we can witness live the marvel that these two musicians have created in three concerts that form part of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre’s series entitled ‘The Complete Edition Live’. The second concert features the F major sonata, called ‘Spring’ after its entrancing opening theme, as well as the lyrical Sonata in G major, op. 96, which bears many of the traits of Beethoven’s late style.

The astounding series of four discs by Klára Würtz and Kristóf Baráti containing the complete violin-piano sonatas by Beethoven is brought to life in the form of three concerts at the Liszt Academy. At this, the third concert in the series, the programme features two works from the composer’s early life and a composition of mythical significance, one that represents one of the greatest challenges in the repertoire – and perhaps music as a whole – the Kreutzer sonata. It is this work which became a central ‘figure’ in Tolstoy’s famous novella at the end of the 19th century. The performance tradition of the past 200 years, as well as the vast number of superb interpretations, make it seemingly impossible to approach this work. Of course, Klára Würtz and Kristóf Baráti have no reason to worry because they have their own ‘angle’ on the work, and the extraordinary expressiveness of their performance, combined with unequalled artistic and technical clarity, would surely have satisfied Beethoven himself.

Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra

Tickets: HUF 1 700, 2 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Tchaikovsky: Memories of a Dear Place, op. 42 Rybnikov: Capriccio Liszt: Dante Symphony József Lendvay (violin) Angelica Girls’ Choir (choral director: Zsuzsanna Gráf) MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Gergely Kesselyák

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COMPLETE WORKS LIVE KRISTÓF BARÁTI & KLÁRA WÜRTZ BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO 3

Sculpture with prosthesis (2013) © ADÉL KOLESZÁR

SATURDAY 16 MAY, 19.30 SUNDAY 17 MAY, 19.30

SUNDAY 17 MAY, 11.00

SOLTI HALL

GRAND HALL

KHATIA BUNIATISHVILI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST Takemitsu: I Hear the Water Dreaming Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, op. 21 Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125 Khatia Buniatishvili (piano) Andrea Meláth (mezzo-soprano); Zoltán Megyesi (tenor); Krisztián Cser (bass) National Choir (choral director: Mátyás Antal) Concerto Budapest Conductor: András Keller

KHATIA BUNIATISHVILI © ESTHER HAASE

Takemitsu was the first Japanese composer to be recognized in the West as being important. The Western tradition, as well as various contemporary trends, left a great an impression on him, as did Japanese traditional music. After an avant-garde period in the 1980s he discovered tonal music, or as he put it, the “sea of tonality”. The infinitely sensitive I Hear the Water Dreaming, performed by Concerto Budapest, dates from this period. Following this is Chopin’s popular Piano Concerto in F minor, with solo by 27-year-old Georgian pianist Khaitia Buniatishvili. “Khatia is a young pianist of extraordinary talent,” said Martha Argerich. “I was impressed by her exceptional pianistic gift, natural musicality, imagination and her brilliant virtuosity.” Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, synonymous with European culture, completes the programme, all under the guidance of conductor András Keller. Tickets: HUF 3 300, 4 800, 6 500 Organizer: Concerto Budapest

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LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS VIOLA FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS Works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Hindemith Péter Bársony (viola), and students of the Liszt Academy Narrator: Gergely Fazekas Why is a conductor needed when sometimes the orchestra gets along fine without him? What is the role of the score in classical music when many music cultures (folk music, jazz, Gregorian, etc.) managed and still manage without it? What do opera directors do and would they be missed by the singers and audience if they were not there? What is a viola doing in the orchestra if it rarely gets a melody and it does not play the bass either? The Liszt Academy series for young people seeks answers to these and many other questions. On the fourth occasion in the series Liszt Prizewinning viola player Péter Bársony and his Liszt Academy students provide an insight into the fantastic world of the viola. We find out what the viola can do better than the violin (or the cello for that matter); and why it is that although the greatest number of music jokes are about viola players, and they have an apparently subordinate role in music, in fact many great composers – for example, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Hindemith – when they could, all played the viola. Gergely Fazekas, who teaches history of music at the Liszt Academy, is narrator. Tickets: HUF 1 200 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre Sponsor: NKA

CELESTIAL AND EARTHLY LOVE It was perhaps a year ago when the voyeuristic world of the internet began to tremor in excitement. Khatia Buniatishvili was a jury member on a Georgian television talent show. As she stood before the cameras, her bosom seemed to be living an independent life. She had no bra on. Amazing. Or quite the opposite. Really, it is a question of taste. In principle, it has nothing to do with art. In practise, it had a great deal to do with it: if you spend enough time looking perhaps you will also start listening. And Buniatishvili plays Chopin – which is not music for a strip bar. This would have been quite inconceivable in the past. I remember how unique and astonishing it was when Péter Zsoldos wrote in a concert review that he found Martha Argerich stunning as both a pianist and a woman. We tended to agree with him, but we would never have talked about it. It was not right. Music, we thought, stood above such things; it was more abstract and elevated than that; it transports us to heaven, among the angels, where it does not matter whether you are man or woman, child or senior citizen. Just souls. We did not notice that in the middle of socialism, we were participating in a public religious service when we sat around at concerts. We have perhaps given up this hypocrisy over time. Today we cheekily gawp at musicians; concert dresses are getting shorter, if they can get away with it. And sometimes even when they can't. Yuja Wang plays the piano astonishingly, but before long he will be on stage in a bathing costume – and he could certainly get away with it. A beautifully painted face, a noble profile, coiffured hair, is worth ten thousand hours of practice. I am uncertain whether Sviatoslav Richter's infinite knowledge and elemental power would be sufficient for today's audience, and whether the impresarios, seeing his dome-like severe skull, might not say: “Sorry, you are not sexy enough. Put a wig on!” I don't want to repeat the hoary and frequently repeated misunderstanding that “everything was much better in the past, particular in music.” You hear this the moment you step foot in any musical institution. Where are the people today that we had in the past? Where are yesterday's people compared to the previous generation? This tenor is good but he is not a Pavarotti. Pavarotti was good but he was no di Stefano. And Stefano was OK but he wasn't Gigli, and Gigli was no Caruso, who was certainly no Reszke – and here it breaks down because musical memory only goes back so far. And although these figures were brands in their own time, and received dazzling rewards for their voices, they recuperated after their evening exertions in beautifully built villas: this was their private business and the press did not deal with it, andkodály there was gossiping in the intervals. bartók, és ano walbauer-kerpely vonósnégyes (FOTÓ: SZÉKELY ALADÁR 1910,

First and foremost, thisZENETUDOMÁNYI was not what their performances were about. No FORRÁS: MTA INTÉZET BARTÓK ARCHIVUM FOTÓTÁRA) matter that careers were planned and a tenor knew exactly which was the best role for his debut in a new city or opera house, fundamental marketing 103

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considerations were not applied. In those times, no one could say that “sex sells”, that anything that targeted erotic interests would necessarily be a hit: the relationship was not so straightforward. Of course, Maria Callas was a beautiful woman, as was Tebaldi, but their beauty had an ethereal nature: no one wanted to jump into bed with them. Perhaps a pot-bellied singer or an elephant-legged violinist were more reassuring. We know that it was just their souls which excited us. Music was the final sanctuary where diligence, conscientiousness, spiritual greatness and a profound world of feeling could strike back. Then let us survey today’s scene. Who is the most important, most well-known soprano outside the walls of the opera house? Of course it is Anna Netrebko. Do we recall how Netrebko's international career was launched? Yes, it was nearly ten years ago in Salzburg. In La Traviata, in a truly miraculous production: it can be seen on video, and it has not dated in the slightest because it was so physical. The chorus was comprised of men, while women were in tails; the whole world was comprised of black guard dogs who wanted to grab hold of the slender beauty in the red dress. Sex sells. Overnight Netrebko had become a world star: this is how to build an international career. Pictures of the beautiful Russian woman, films about her life, where she came from and where she has got to. There is really no need for further productions; it is enough that she exists. We take pleasure in seeing her contours and face, indeed cosmetics are sold with her hair: this is what success means today. Let us go a little further. The most popular tenor today is Juan Diego Flórez, a good looking Latin lover with curly hair. His manager is Ernesto Palacio, who is also Peruvian. His voice was in no way inferior to Flórez's, but he had no one like himself to direct his steps, to tell him what he should and should not do, to look at his photographs, and have the diligent photoshoppers remove the birthmarks from his face. Again we feel he no longer has to sing to earn this; the star has been constructed so well. Before we give up in despair about the state of the world, let us listen to them. On recordings, on video, and if possible, live. Flórez is not a larger-than-life personality, but his voice is good with amazing high notes, and he works hard on the stage. Anna Netrebko is no longer the sexy flower that she once was, – she has filled out – but her voice is darker, more powerful, and her artistry enriched and more profound. Sex sells, but if there is nothing to sell, then the bubble bursts, and after one or two seasons the song is over. If our relationship with art is love – great and hopefully undying love – then we know from other loves that life is like this. External beauty brings people together, it attracts attention. But it only creates a possibility. The one who remains is not a product but an artist, the proclaimer of another reality. They take us by the hand and fly with us, and do not allow us to believe the world is only what we see. Because there is much more. Miklós Fáy

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MONDAY 18 MAY, 19.30

TUESDAY 19 MAY, 19.30

GRAND HALL

MASTERS OF THE ORCHESTRA KEN-ICHIRO KOBAYASHI & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

PURE BAROQUE JORDI SAVALL & LE CONCERT DES NATIONS

Tchaikovsky: String Serenade, op. 48 Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A major, op. 92 Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi

KEN-ICHIRO KOBAYASHI © GÁBOR FEJÉR

During the academic year 2014– 2015 the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra take part in three important projects. In the autumn Zoltán Kocsis conducted the ensemble; in April the company undertook Händel’s late oratorio Theodora under the baton of György Vashegyi; and at the end of the school year the legendary Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi leads the orchestra. In order to participate in the life of the symphony orchestra, selected Liszt Academy students have to go through a series of auditions and sign a contract, in just the same way as they will find after graduating. The concert programme includes Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings (a work whose enchanting melodies belie what serious obstacles the composer sets for musicians), and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, described by Wagner as “the apotheosis of the dance” and by Glenn Gould as “the first disco music.” Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 700, 2 800, 3 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre The Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra is supported by Friends of Liszt Academy of Music. The concert series of the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra is supported by Erste Bank.

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J. S. Bach: Musical Offering (BWV 1079) Le Concert des Nations Artistic director: Jordi Savall “I think that music is not an archaeological feature. Naturally, all music has its history, but these works are also living today. It is possible that in a historical sense we play early music, but all music is contemporary if it is played by contemporaries.” These words come from a Budapest interview with living legend Jordi Savall, Catalonian viol player and conductor, and leading light in early music performance practice. His repertoire spans medieval and Renaissance tradition right up to the early 19th century, and although he has been to Budapest on several occasions, a Hungarian audience has never heard him play Bach live. Savall and his ensemble, Le Concert des Nations, released Bach’s enigmatic late masterpiece Musical Offering in 2001, and this recording has since become a point of reference. Composed in 1747, Prussian ruler Frederick the Great gave Bach the theme for the piece when the elderly genius visited Berlin (where his son was court harpsichordist). He improvised on the theme, and on return home he wrote complex canons, polyphonic ricercars and a large-scale sonata to the royal melody. Tickets: HUF 1 400, 2 100, 3 500, 4 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Jordi savall © DAVID IGNASZEWSKI Kocsis Zoltán (FOTÓ: MARJAI JUDIT)

LIVING MUSICAL MEMORY The Catalan viola da gamba artist Jordi Savall is a living legend in the realm of period performance PRACTICE. He has moved mountains popularising his ancient instrument and rediscovering its literature. For the non-specialist audience he has uncovered an entire musical repertoire, often penetrating deep into the musical past. But we should not forget his radical reinterpretations of the fundamental works of classical music. He comes now to the Liszt Academy with a late Bach masterpiece 'The Musical Offering'. He sat down to speak about his repertoire, 'The Musical Offering' and the future of early music performance with Balázs Máté, who is a member of his group and also artistic director of the Aura Musicale group, which has performed on several occasions at the Liszt Academy.

What is the exact extent of your repertoire? My repertoire begins with music dating from the earliest times about which we know music. In the case of European music this can be dated to the 7 th century AD; Eastern music goes back much further. In our programme entitled ‘Jerusalem’, we experimented by reconstructing a group of Jericho trumpets and the music they produced. This can be dated to the 2 nd millennium BC. In the case of such early music, what are the performer's points of reference? I visited Jerusalem, and in the Orthodox quarter I became acquainted with the shofar instruments. These are large wind instruments similar to the horn which were probably used at the time of Abraham, presumably at the siege of Jericho, together with the so-called anafirs. These are giant trumpets some two metres long with a telescope-like construction. I wanted to compose something for these instruments, so first I wrote out all the notes which could be played on the various sized instruments. Then I had them play relatively simply fanfares, because it was not generally the custom to play from music during battle. As a result of the large number of musicians involved (there were forty in all), this created quite a breathtaking sound. But some of my other programmes present similarly ancient music. These are built on the oral traditions of the people of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. On these occasions, I worked with Israeli, Armenian, Moroccan, Greek and other musicians. But I also go quite far in the opposite direction. The most modern works that we play with the choir are pieces composed for us by Arvo Pärt: motets, lullabies and similar. We have also played compositions from the early 19th century by Beethoven and Arriaga with the orchestra. Bach's Musical Offering is a mysterious work from a number of angles, and even the order of movements is ambiguous. How are you structuring the Budapest concert? We shall commence the programme along similar lines to Bach's own time, when an aristocrat would frequently give a musician a theme to improvise upon. The Musical Offering has its origins in such an event, when Bach met Frederick the Second in Berlin in 1747. The three-part ricercar of the Musical Offering is in all likelihood very similar to that which Bach spontaneously improvised on the theme given to him by the King. For this reason, I first have the theme played on the flute (the king's own instrument), then the ricercar follows on the harpsichord. Then we hear the movements composed subsequently, movements in which Bach explores the theme in every manner possible. I have assembled them so that the first series leads towards the most modern composition, the trio

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sonata, while the second series heads in the ‘contrary’ direction, to the most ancient-styled work, the six-part ricercar. By doing this, we create a kind of mirror form. With the orchestration of the different canons and fugues, I aimed for the widest possible variety so that we give the listener the greatest possible experience, not just intellectually but in terms of sonority and emotion. You have been at the forefront of early music performance for more than four decades. How do you see the future of historic performing practice? It is very important that in recent decades early music has won its civil rights. It has become an accustomed and integral part of music life. These days no one marvels if someone plays on a wooden flute, a viola da gamba or some other ancient instrument. Early music education is now an integral part of the world's leading music academies and conservatoires. By the same token, the biggest difference I can see compared to my generation is that today's gamba students are assailed by doubts if, after graduating, they have not received a recording contract! By contrast, Pablo Casals, for example, worked on the Bach cello suites for ten years before he dared perform one. In 1965 I discovered the first Marais pieces, and then for ten straight years I practised them for eight to ten hours a day, before in 1975 I finally undertook to record them. Today's musicians want quick results with strong effects; they want clamorous success with the audience. For me, immersion through extended work was much more important. It is as though today's young musicians have less patience for research. They frequently do not understand the difference between French, Italian, English or German Baroque style. Of course, besides all the historical knowledge, the most important parameters are talent, imagination, richness of emotion, and creative playing. If that elemental musical power is absent, then no amount of important historical knowledge will help! In recent years, you have played concerts that primarily have thematic programmes. Why do you regard these as important? I profoundly agree with Elias Canetti who expressed it best in his work The Human Province: “Music is humanity's true and living memory because it addresses our hearts and emotions.” When we hear a troubadour song about the Béziers massacre, we sense we are there in the very centre of events. If we read in a book about the murder of twenty thousand people, then our rational minds say: “How terrible!” But when the melody is heard, we fall under its effect body and soul, with our entire sense organs. I think that the philosophical-aesthetic theories that evolved from the end of the 18 th century, which talked about music as something abstract, being independent from reality, are entirely false. When we hear Beethoven's Eroica we hear the atmosphere of the era – the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars – when it was written. It is like a vision, an apparition. 109

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It leads to deeper understanding. And I strive for this with thematic programmes as well: ‘War and Peace’, ‘Erasmus’, ‘Jerusalem’, and so forth. The listener can aesthetically and emotionally experience each era of human history. Many are sounding the bells of doom for European classical music. What do you think about the future of serious music? I'm optimistic. People need music, including classical music. In my view, the problem lies with the classical music industry, which lives off major state and other sponsorship. There are a thousand times more symphony orchestra concerts than string quartet concerts because orchestras receive large amounts of funding whereas quartets do not. Meanwhile orchestras play largely old-fashioned, boring programmes with rigid, out-of-date structures. There are a few exceptions, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, who work under Simon Rattle's innovative spirit. They make live performances accessible through giant screens or the internet for the wider audience who have not yet entered a concert hall. You have to bring the music closer to people, you have to break down the walls. The training system of the conservatoires generally is stuck with the spirit of a time in which concert life was the realm of the bourgeoisie. This has to be changed with creative ideas so that we can address the broadest possible public! Early music is exceptionally appropriate for achieving this. We see increasing numbers of young people at our concerts. So it is my opinion that the old support system has to be changed, in the spirit of fairness and competition. The truly successful formations – for example, the early music groups – should receive more support. I regard the current situation as unfair: Baroque orchestras never receive state support, yet symphony orchestras are given hundreds of millions. We have to persuade the politicians that music must not be allowed to turn into museum pieces. We have to fill Europe's cultural heritage with life. Without the early musicians, what would people know of ancient, medieval and renaissance music? If we want the music of Monteverdi, Bach and others to be heard tomorrow (and it is my conviction that this is in the fundamental interest of humanity), then we have to support musicians working with these composers and not just those who play romantic and modern music. I hope we will succeed. We have to inform people of Goethe's – in my opinion profoundly true – thought: “He who does not like music does not deserve to be called a man, he who only loves it is half a man, but he who also makes music is a whole man!” Balázs Máté

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ENTRY IN THE GUEST BOOK OF LISZT ACADEMY KIM KASHKASHIAN (26 NOVEMBER 2014)

WEDNESDAY 20 MAY, 19.30

FRIDAY 22 MAY, 19.30

SATURDAY 23 MAY, 16.00

GRAND HALL

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC Mozart: The Magic Flute – overture Mozart: Piano Concerto in C major (K. 503) Haydn: The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross Katalin Szutrély (soprano); Judit Németh (alto); László Kálmán (tenor); Domonkos Blazsó (bass) Mihály Berecz (piano) National Choir (choral director: Mátyás Antal) Hungarian National Philharmonic Conductor: György Vashegyi Three emblematic creations of the mature First Viennese School are performed at this concert. All three works date from between 1786–1791, so the programme is a kind of snapshot of the style and musical approach of the two geniuses. The mystic symbolism of The Magic Flute is already apparent in the overture; it is sufficient just to think of the three chords repeated three times. The 18-year-old, outstandingly talented Mihály Berecz (acknowledged by Zoltán Kocsis, and with whom he appeared at a charity recital) is soloist for the Piano Concerto in C major, which is associated with the ‘Jupiter’ symphony because of its grandiose symphonic treatment and same key. There are several versions of Haydn’s harrowing Good Friday meditation. The version performed here was first heard in 1796. This time the Zoltán Kocsis orchestra are conducted by György Vashegyi, who is one of the most proficient exponents in Hungary of the early music performance method. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 4 500, 6 000 Organizer: Hungarian National Philharmonic 112

BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA BARTÓK – HOMELAND Mosonyi: Funeral Music on the Death of István Széchenyi Liszt: Two Scenes from Lenau’s ‘Faust’ Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (BB 123)

MR CHILDREN’S CHOIR END-OF-SEASON CONCERT MR Children’s Choir Conductors: László Matos, Sándor Kabdebó, Klára Brebovszky

“It goes without saying that this exalted piece of our national music, by its artistic idealization, was the most interesting part of the concert focusing all the attention,” wrote a critic about Mihály Mosonyi’s piece on the death of István Széchenyi. The orchestral version of the piano work by the composer, who was born 200 years ago and died 145 years ago, was performed at the time, as a world premiere, under the baton of Ferenc Erkel. Since then Funeral Music on the Death of István Széchenyi has barely been performed in a concert hall, so it is an exciting undertaking on the part of the young orchestra and Máté Hámori, the ambitious artistic director. Liszt’s orchestral Faust theme – similarly transcribed from piano works and dating from 1860 – is also rarely played, although the second movement, the Mephisto Waltz, is one of the most original pieces of music that can be heard on the piano. After the intermission it is the turn of a masterpiece by Bartók composed five years before his death 70 years ago.

Founded in 1954 by Valéria Botka and László Csányi, the Hungarian Radio and Television Children’s Choir have over the past 60 years covered virtually the entire globe and have, by taking part in contemporary premieres and by combining adult discipline yet the crystal clear purity of children’s voices, proven their stature when they perform either Gregorian or Renaissance works. Their traditional end-of-season programme features resounding compositions by European and Hungarian composers. Their voices will no doubt resound through the hall, since anyone who has heard the Hungarian Radio and Television Children’s Choir knows that their sound has maintained its elemental force and authenticity over many generations. This is due in large part to Gabriella Thész, who oversaw the ensemble for so many years and truly shaped its personality, as well as the current conductors of the choir, László Matos and Sándor Kabdebó, as well as Klára Brebovszky dealing with the younger children, who have followed in her footsteps.

Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 200, 3 800, 4 700 Organizer: Óbudai Danubia Nonprofit Kft.

Tickets: HUF 2 000, 3 000, 4 000 Organizer: MR Music Ensembles

Danubia Orchestra Óbuda Conductor: Máté Hámori

Attempting to be comprehensive

KAMARA.HU Chamber Music Festival Budapest

19-22 NOVEMBER 2015

Firsts and lasts ARTISTIC DIRECTORS: Izabella Simon and Dénes Várjon Casals String Quartet; Kristóf Baráti, Veronika Eberle (violin); Claudio Bohorquez, István Várdai (cello); Radovan Vlatkovic (French horn); Ib Hausmann (clarinet); Louise Pellerin (oboe); György Lakatos (bassoon); Mojca Erdmann (soprano); István Kovács (bass); Katia Skanavi, Izabella Simon, Dénes Várjon (piano)

SUNDAY 24 MAY, 19.30

THURSDAY 28 MAY, 19.00

GRAND HALL

SOLTI HALL

SONG RECITALS AT THE LISZT ACADEMY MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ & MITSUKO UCHIDA Schumann: Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, op. 135 Debussy: The Songs of Bilitis Mahler: Rückert-Lieder Debussy: Ariettes Oubliées Messiaen: Poèmes pour Mi (2nd book) Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano) Mitsuko Uchida (piano)

MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ © DAVID PORT

It is a rare song recital indeed when one is unable to decide whether it is the vocalist or the pianist who holds greater promise. The partnership of Magdalena Kožená and Mitsuko Uchida is just such an occasion. Critics reporting on concerts by the two star performers simply do not know whether to extol more the virtues of the singer’s sensual sound and intellectual approach or the sensitivity, depth and refined touch of the pianist. What’s more, the recital of the mezzo-soprano and pianist – both among the greatest in their respective fields – in Budapest has a third attraction: their programme showcases rarely performed masterpieces by major composers. The concert begins with Schumann’s final song cycle, Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, written a few years before his decline into mental illness, which relates the story of this fated women. The Debussy cycle paints a different female portrait from the poems of Ancient Greek courtesan Bilitis, the imaginative creation of Symbolist poet Pierre Louÿs. Poèmes pour Mi, dedicated to Messiaen’s first wife (the composer nicknamed Claire Delbos ‘Mi’ after the solmization syllable), is the ‘story’ of a married woman from her husband’s perspective. Tickets: HUF 2 900, 4 100, 5 200, 6 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

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JAZZ IT! ANAT COHEN QUARTET Anat Cohen (clarinet) Jason Lindner (piano) Joe Martin (bass guitar) Donald Kotomanou (drums) “Anat Cohen not only proved to be a woodwind revelation of dark tones and delicious lyricism, but also a dynamic bandleader who danced and shouted out encouragement to her group,” reported jazz magazine DownBeat about the Israeli clarinettist’s appearance at the Northfield Jazz Festival in 2008. Cohen was born in Tel Aviv, but has lived in New York since 1999 (having graduated from Berklee), and there is not a single jazz or near-jazz genre that she won’t have a go at. She has been voted clarinettist of the year for the past six years by the American Jazz Journalists Association, and both the profession and the general public have been equally enthusiastic about her five independent albums (the last one came out in 2012). She is at home with classical jazz standards, Afro-Cuban music, Brazilian rhythms and klezmer, but her style is incomparable. As the Chicago Tribune put it: “The lyric beauty of her tone, the easy fluidity of her technique and the extroverted manner of her delivery make this music accessible to all.” Tickets: HUF 1 900, 2 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

MITSUKO UCHIDA © RICHARD AVEDON Kocsis Zoltán (FOTÓ: MARJAI JUDIT)

FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND If I say that Benno Moiseiwitsch's Kreutzer Sonata recording is one of the best in the world, people will doubt my words. And if I add that the most wonderful Verdi aria of recent years is associated with the name of Gianandrea Noseda? The truth is that I was being economical with the details, since Benno Moiseiwitsch's chamber partner was Jascha Heifetz, while Noseda was the conductor accompanying Anna Netrebko.

We like to focus the spotlight ever more narrowly, if possible directed onto a single person. Beethoven wrote a piano part for the Kreutzer Sonata, yet what makes it special is that the two instruments are perfectly equal – but this can seem less important. A characteristic feature of European thinking is that we organise terms into dichotomies, and we hypothesise a largely hierarchical relationship in these pairs: content and form, body and soul, essence and phenomenon, foreground and background, melody and accompaniment, star and accompanist. Hierarchical relations are not fixed as eternally valid, be it in politics, human relationships or musical genres. With the passage of time, they are often turned on their heads. Take for example the violin-piano pieces in which the classical music cult for the star performer (beginning in the 19th century) emphasised the virtuoso violinist and pushed the pianist, together with his accompanying part, into the background. But in a certain period of the genre's history, particularly around 1760, for example the violin piano sonatas written by the young Mozart, the violin largely accompanied the piano: it did nothing more than add colour to the piano part. The evolution of the song genre is similar from this perspective. In the second half of the 18th century, when the German Lied was born, the piano solo was little more than a simple accompaniment to a melody that was attractive in its own simplicity. But from the start of the 19th century, the Lied gradually exited the world of the salon and conquered the highest peaks of autonomous art with the piano increasingly involved, so that in the songs of Schumann and Brahms it had become an equal partner of the vocal part. And although the piano part in the world of abstract music can be an equal partner, hierarchical relationships cling on stubbornly. When in Tolstoy's great short story Pozdnisev's wife tries to play the Kreutzer Sonata with her supposed lover Truhachevsky, the roles are unambiguous: the woman plays on the piano, which is generally regarded as an accompanying instrument, because according to the basic model the woman accompanies the man and the man directs the woman – in music as in other areas of life. For this reason, the really exciting performances are when singer and pianist enter stage as true equals, when neither of them is singled out by the spotlights, when we call them a singer-pianist duo: duos such as Anna Netrebko and Daniel Barenboim, Susan Graham and Pierre-Laurent Amiard, Cecilia Bartoli and András Schiff – or indeed Magdalena Kožená and Mitsuko Uchida. Gergely Fazekas

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SUNDAY 31 MAY, 10.00–17.00

SUNDAY 31 MAY, 19.30

LISZT FERENC SQUARE

GRAND HALL

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE ISTVÁN VÁRDAI & PÉTER FRANKL BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR CELLO AND PIANO Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Cello and Piano in F major, op. 5/1 Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, op. 5/2 Sonata for Cello and Piano in A major, op. 69 Sonata for Cello and Piano in C major, op. 102/1 Sonata for Cello and Piano in D major, op. 102/2 István Várdai (cello) Péter Frankl (piano)

BIG LISZT KIDZ DAY When in 2013 the renovated building of the Liszt Academy was inaugurated and the Liszt Academy Concert Centre established, many may not have noticed amidst the celebrations the birth, in an attic nook, of an important personality: Mr Liszt Kidz, the image and spiritual leader of the Liszt Kidz Academy, the Liszt Academy’s very own programme for young people. Two-and-a-half years in the life of a musical kid is a long time, and it is now the moment to take stock and celebrate. On the last Sunday in May, on Children’s Day, the rooms and concert halls of the Liszt Academy are thrown open; indeed the institution itself moves out onto Liszt Ferenc Square and the pedestrianized Dohnányi Street to celebrate the birthday of Mr Liszt Kidz with concerts, a musical treasure hunt and games, dance house, activities for groups and other events. Full details on the Liszt Academy website from March.

In 2015 pianist legend and London resident Péter Frankl reaches the age of 80, while Budapest-based cellist István Várdai – in all likelihood someone who will also be a legend in 50 years’ time – turns a relatively boyish 30. Although in a musical sense they could have a grandfather-grandson relationship, in truth they are perfect and equal partners thanks to the youthfulness of Frankl’s way of thinking and musicality and the maturity of Várdai, who has won several of the most prestigious music competitions, including most recently the 2014 ARD. The two intend to undertake no less a task than performing all five Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano in one grand concert. This not only represents a unique artistic experience for the audience but also the opportunity to review the astonishing trajectory that Beethoven’s career followed.

Free admission Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

Tickets: HUF 1 200, 1 700, 2 800, 3 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre

ISTVÁN VÁRDAI

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SATURDAY 6 JUNE, 19.00

SOLTI HALL

THURSDAY 11 JUNE, 19.45 FRIDAY 12 JUNE, 19.45 SATURDAY 13 JUNE, 15.30 SUNDAY 14 JUNE, 15.30

GRAND HALL

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC TÜKRÖS 30 Éva Korpás (vocals) Attila Halmos (violin, vocals) Gergely Koncz (violin, viola) Péter Árendás (viola) Endre Liber (cimbalom, viola) András Lelkes (double bass) The ars poetica of the Tükrös ensemble is to provide their audience with a modern musical experience solely using performance tools of authentic folk music. They are convinced that even today it is possible to extract the life force from this sort of music which, in times past, nourished young people. So to put it headline style: strictly stylistic, fixed improvisation; chamber music of clockwork precision; dynamism without music treatment and the mixing of genres. The music of the Transylvanian Plain (Mezőség) was the first impulse for the members of the ensemble, an impulse that made folk music the determining factor in their lives. After playing together for twenty years, they paid tribute to musicians of brilliant local Gypsy bands with their album Our Mezőség. Their current programme also genuflects in homage to those who recorded this unparalleled musical treasure for posterity in the course of various trips collecting folk music. They want succeeding generations also to be a part of all this. Tickets: HUF 1 900 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre 118

Haydn: Symphony No. 44 in E minor (‘Mourning‘) Weber: Clarinet Concerto in E-flat major, op. 74 Mozart: German Dances (K. 571) Mozart: Symphony in C major (K. 200) Roland Csalló (clarinet) Budapest Festival Orchestra Conductor: Gábor Takács-Nagy The Budapest Festival Orchestra launch their end-of-season concert with one of Haydn’s dramatic so-called ‘Sturm und Drang’ symphonies ‘Mourning’. This is followed by Weber’s Clarinet Concerto in E-flat major, with solo by Roland Csalló (the orchestra’s clarinettist graduated from the Liszt Academy in 2002, and has attained podium finishes at many competitions, being one of the winners of the Sándor Végh Competition organized by the BFO). After this sparkling concerto it is the turn of a series of dance movements from the husband of Weber’s cousin: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote the K. 571 catalogue number series for a Prague ball; in other words, this is not stylized but in fact genuine dance music. The final work in the concert (performed under the guidance of conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy) is the C major symphony, composed in Salzburg in 1773 when Mozart was 17. Tickets: HUF 2 500, 3 500, 4 400, 6 300, 10 500 Organizer: Budapest Festival Orchestra

Nativity scene at a block of flats © PÉTER KORNISS

FRIDAY 19 JUNE, 19.00

TUESDAY 30 JUNE, 19.00

GRAND HALL

ERKEL THEATRE

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival – overture Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet – overture fantasia Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47 MÁV Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Irwin Hoffman American conductor Irwin Hoffman first directed the MÁV Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2005, since when he has returned to the ensemble every year. The famous conductor, who celebrated his 90th birthday in 2014, was a student of the Juilliard Music School and protégé of Serge Koussevitsky. In 1968–1969 he directed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (György Solti took over the post of music director from him), and currently he works as principal conductor with the Bogota Philharmonics in the capital of Colombia. The programme is exclusively Russian works. Starting with the glittering Rimsky-Korsakov overture, which reflects ancient Russian Easter traditions, the programme continues with Tchaikovsky’s popular Romeo and Juliet fantasia, then one of Shostakovich’s most elusive works, Symphony No. 5. This is the piece that he composed in 1937 after his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was banned by Stalin, and which was able to comply with the demands of Socialist Realism and forced official optimism while – at least to later listeners – projecting from the music passion, irony and a sense that the composer is actually thinking exactly the opposite of what he says. Tickets: HUF 3 000, 3 500, 4 000 Organizer: MÁV Symphony Orchestra 120

OPERA EXAM Károly Goldmark: A Winter’s Tale Ferenc Lehár: The Land of Smiles Teachers: Éva Marton, Júlia Pászthy, Ingrid Kertesi, Magda Nádor, Katalin Halmai and Atilla Kiss B. Set design-costumes: Krisztina Lisztopád Choreographer: Eszter Lázár Director: András Almási-Tóth Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera Conductor: Gergely Madaras The Liszt Academy’s end-of-year opera exam takes place in the renewed Erkel Theatre so that singers who are more at home in the Sir Georg Solti Chamber Hall, can try out a full-size stage. Conductor for the exam is Gergely Madaras, one of the brightest stars of the young Hungarian conductor generation, a person who has worked as assistant to Pierre Boulez, conductor at the English National Opera and music director of the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne, and who is currently leading the Szombathely Savaria Orchestra. Head of the Liszt Academy opera programme, András Almási-Tóth, has selected a rarely performed Károly Goldmark work on a Shakespeare drama, A Winter’s Tale (1908), and Ferenc Lehár’s popular operetta about the love affair between a Viennese aristocratic girl and a Chinese prince, The Land of Smiles (1929), as examination pieces for students of the department of vocal studies, headed by Andrea Meláth. Tickets: HUF 500 Organizer: Liszt Academy Concert Centre, Hungarian State Opera

CONCERTS AT THE OLD MUSIC ACADEMY LISZT MUSEUM MATINEE CONCERTS

3 JANUAR 11.00 Dávid Bekker and Gergely Varga (piano) 10 JANUARY 11.00 Ádám Zsolt Szokolay (piano) 17 JANUARY 11.00 Ferenc János Szabó (piano) and Lóránt Najbauer (baritone) 24 JANUARY 11.00 Ágnes Kövecs (piano) and Piroska Baranyai (cello) 31 JANUARY 11.00 Musicians of the Budapest Philharmonic Society 7 FEBRUARY 11.00 Ágnes Kövecs (piano) and Piroska Baranyai (cello) 14 FEBRUARY 11.00 Chamber Orchestra of Budapest-Hegyvidék (conductor: Géza Gémesi) 21 FEBRUARY 11.00 Daniel Immel (piano) 28 FEBRUARY 11.00 Borbála Dobozy (harpsichord) and Márta Ábrahám (violin) 7 MARCH 11.00 Carmine Celebrat Choir (conductor: Zimányi István)

14 MARCH 11.00 14 MARCH 19.00 21 MARCH 11.00 28 MARCH 11.00 4 APRIL 11.00 11 APRIL 11.00 18 APRIL 11.00 25 APRIL 11.00 9 MAY 11.00 16 MAY 11.00 23 MAY 11.00 30 MAY 11.00 6 JUNE 11.00 13 JUNE 11.00

Featuring: Gábor Eckhardt (piano) Saint Ephraim Male Choir (conductor: Tamás Bubnó) Cyprien Katsaris (piano) Yanis Benabdallah (tenor) and Marouan Benabdallah (piano) Renáta Konyicska (piano) Balázs Szokolay and Diána Szőke (piano) Bernadett Mészáros and her baroque ensemble Enikő Lőte (piano) and her students Sándor Falvai (piano) Kodály Choir Kecskemét (conductor: László Norbert Nemes) Eugene Alcalay (piano) Students of the Paris Conservatoire Winner of the Los Angeles Liszt-competition (piano) Terrie Manno (piano) Ádám Banda (violin)

ENCOUNTERS WITH FERENC LISZT – JOINT CONCERTS OF THE FERENC LISZT SOCIETY AND LISZT ACADEMY

21 JANUARY 18.00 LISZT AND CHAMBER MUSIC

18 FEBRUARY 18.00 LISZT, THE POLYGLOT MASTER OF THE SONG

18 MARCH

Eszter Perényi (violin), György Déri (cello), István Lajkó (piano) and students of the String Department of Liszt Academy bartók, kodály és a walbauer-kerpely vonósnégyes Andrea Meláth and her students (FOTÓ:(piano) SZÉKELY ALADÁR 1910, Featuring: Katalin Alter and Ferenc János Szabó FORRÁS: MTA ZENETUDOMÁNYI INTÉZET BARTÓK ARCHIVUM FOTÓTÁRA)

18.00 LISZT AND CHORAL MUSIC

New Liszt Chamber Choir – Featuring: Péter Morva (piano) 121

MASTER PROGRAMME DIPLOMA CONCERTS 2 FEBRUARY 19.00

SOLTI HALL

Tamás Szabó (viola)

23 FEBRUARY 16.00

SOLTI HALL

Ádám Menyhei (piano)

16 MARCH

19.00

GRAND HALL

Péter Dobszay (conductor)

17 MARCH

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Beáta Oláh (French horn)

26 MARCH

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Bernadett Biczó (violin)

27 MARCH

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Anna Jámbor (violin)

27 MARCH

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Sára Deim (piano)

1 APRIL

17.00

SOLTI HALL

Kuchynková Nikol (cimbalom)

1 APRIL

18.00 SOLTI HALL

Erzsébet Gódor (cimbalom)

20 APRIL

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Ferenc Farkas (French horn)

20 APRIL

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Dorottya Simon (piano)

21 APRIL

19.00

GRAND HALL

Atsushi Hashimoto (cello)

24 APRIL

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Krisztina Szabó (bassoon)

27 APRIL

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Zhang Xiaobang (clarinet)

27 APRIL

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Zsolt Farkas (piano)

30 APRIL

19.00

GRAND HALL

Eszter Osztrosits (violin)

7 MAY

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Brigitta Mészáros (cello)

7 MAY

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Tamás Diószegi (violin)

8 MAY

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Szabina Kristóf (vocal and opera studies)

10 MAY

12.00

SOLTI HALL

Llorenç Prats Boscà (piano)

10 MAY

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Carlos Emilio López Ruiz (piano)

11 MAY

19.00

GRAND HALL

Áron Petrus-Bölöni (cello)

12 MAY

19.00

GRAND HALL

Oszkár Varga (violin)

13 MAY

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Géza Szajkó (violin)

13 MAY

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Shino Hattori (piano)

17 MAY

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Carmen Santamaría Hernández (piano)

20 MAY

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Anna Farkas (oboe)

20 MAY

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Mihály Könyves-Tóth (trumpet)

21 MAY

19.00

GRAND HALL

Boglárka Gémesi (choir conductor) and Emília Szkordilisz (oboe)

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22 MAY

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Okazaki Misa (piano)

30 MAY

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Eszter Sotkó (répétiteur)

30 MAY

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Márta Obbágy (piano)

31 MAY

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Balázs Demény (piano)

2 JUNE

19.00

GRAND HALL

Imre Dani (piano)

3 JUNE

19.00

GRAND HALL

Dániel Hérincs and Bence Pintér (composition)

5 JUNE

18.00 GRAND HALL Zsófia Staszny and Katalin Vámosi

8 JUNE

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Mireia Frutos Fernández (piano)

12 JUNE

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Marcell Kocsis (piano)

12 JUNE

19.00

SOLTI HALL

Mizuko Suda (piano)

13 JUNE

16.00

SOLTI HALL

Éva Bauernfeind (répétiteur)

(vocal and opera studies)

Free tickets can be requested from the Liszt Academy ticket office. Further details, BA programme and other diploma concerts at Liszt Academy’s University site: http://lfze.hu/en/diploma-concerts 123

KIDZ ACADEMY YOUTH PROGRAMMES AT THE LISZT ACADEMY Every child is born with music; there is no babe untouched by the music of Mozart or Bach. Or indeed Gangnam Style, depending on what they encounter at home. The youth programmes of the Liszt Academy naturally aim to acquaint youngsters not with the values of pop culture, but with the three musical worlds which shape the institution’s teaching and concert life; namely, classical music, folk music and jazz.

The objective of the Liszt Academy's youth programmes, under the sobriquet ‘Kidz Academy’, is not to nurture musicians but to create the audiences of the future. For those children who hear the Goldberg Variations at home, we will show them further wonders from the infinite universe of great music. For those who grow up in the shadow of Lady Gaga, we guide them to other musical lands. The Liszt Academy youth programmes rest on three pillars. The whole scheme was launched in 2013 at an experimental level; from spring 2014 it expanded somewhat (including the presence of our own Liszt Kidz website); and from the autumn of 2014 the Liszt Kidz Academy opened to young people – and, of course, parents and grandparents – in its full glory. One of the pillars comprises weekly activities for small groups of 6–10-year-olds. Not only are these children taught about the different music genres and forms, and shown (and allowed to handle) various instruments, but they are also initiated into the operational mechanism of concert organization. We built a scale model of the Grand Hall in Lego bricks, and children can then play with Lego figures, showing how the artists arrive, the preparations for the concert, where the audience gathers and so on. The other two elements of the youth programmes are Chamber and Grand Hall concerts for 10–15 year-olds, where the children can see and hear for themselves how the music comes alive (for details see page 125). Many think that music is pure entertainment. They are wrong. It teaches the essence of man, and it is almost never too early to start the acquaintance. As Shakespeare put it: “The man that hath no music in himself / Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds / Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; / The motions of his spirit are dull as night, / And his affections dark as Erebus. / Let no such man be trusted. / Mark the music.” In spring 2015 between February 7 and May 16, we will hold the small group of “Kidz Academy” activities in the Liszt Academy Ferenc Liszt Square building each Saturday from 10.00. The activities are aimed at the 6–10 age group. Parents cannot participate in the activities but they are welcome to sit in on the dress rehearsal for the grand hall concert (so long as the performers have no objection). Further details: http://zeneakademia.hu/junior Tickets: HUF 900

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LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY FOR 10–15 YEAR-OLDS CONCERT SERIES IN THE SOLTI HALL

1 MARCH 2015 THE SUPERFLUOUS OPERA DIRECTOR 12 APRIL 2015 THE SUPERFLUOUS SHEET MUSIC 17 MAY 2015 THE SUPERFLUOUS VIOLA CONCERT IN THE GRAND HALL

21 MARCH 2015 THE SUPERFLUOUS CONDUCTOR FAMILIES ARRIVING WITH MORE THAN TWO CHILDREN CAN PURCHASE TICKETS FOR THE CONCERT IN THE GRAND HALL WITH A 50% DISCOUNT FOR THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS UNDER 18.

THE LISZT ACADEMY PRESENTS: THE LIBRARY In February 2015 the Central Library of the Liszt Academy opens its doors once more to readers. The library is the custodian of the largest music collection in Hungary, with nearly half a million scores and seven thousand books. The collection was launched exactly 140 years ago when the ministry granted the newly founded academy 300 forints of state support, in addition to a donation of five chests of books from Liszt himself.

The library collection began with the foundation of the Liszt Academy, and in its first decade it grew primarily thanks to the generosity of Hungarian publishers. After Liszt's death, the collection doubled because he bequeathed his Budapest estate to the Academy in his will. With the arrival of the new century there was an expansion of teaching at the Academy (with woodwind faculties and teacher training), and the collection grew accordingly. In 1907 it moved to the newly built secession building on Ferenc Liszt Square, where it found a fitting home for itself. The material was soon reorganised with the creation of specialist and alphabetical catalogues, and thus the collection of the Liszt Academy Library, under the stewardship of Margit Prahács from 1928 until 1961, became the largest specialist music library in Hungary. In the difficult days following World War Two, the library's budget was severely cut and its employees sacked. For a while the collection closed. But by the sixties, times had changed and it entered a new golden age. From 1961 to 2005 its director Dr János Kárpáti adapted the library to give it the profile of a musicological research centre and promoted it internationally. Between 1961 and 1990, the number of books and scores tripled in number, and because the Liszt Academy was granted a hard currency budget, it was able to purchase books and publications from abroad. This process was fully completed during Ágnes Gádor's directorship, but naturally there have been continual further developments. The Central Library, the Research Library and the special Sound Library, with its independent space in the Old Academy, as well as the Liszt Academy's Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, have been directed since 2012 by Dr Géza Kovács, and unlike the libraries of specialist faculties, are public institutions. Even now, any university teacher, student and professional musician or teacher is allowed to borrow the books. When the Liszt Academy building was being reconstructed, the Central Library was housed at 10 Eötvös Street, and the director promised some striking new changes. With its move back home in early 2015, a new library internet platform is being created, bringing together the different catalogues and databases, facilitating simpler and quicker searching of every available source. “Our goal is to reduce the waiting time for scores and information and to expand our distance services, including solutions supporting online research, e-books and e-periodicals,” said Géza Kocsis, who adds: “The open-shelved reading room created during the restoration and the separate research areas are fundamentally new; thus readers to the library will, from early February, be greeted with 21st century services within a uniquely beautiful heritage environment.” Dániel Végh

126

DESIGN OSCAR, CRAFT WARD & COMMUNICATION ARTS AWARD The Liszt Academy has won three more outstanding awards for its portfolio of publications and its new profile created for its relaunch in autumn 2013. It also achieved outstanding results at the Red Dot and the Communication Arts competition, which are the most prestigious prizes of the international design profession, and the Kreatív Craft Award, which is the leader of the Hungarian communications industry.

The Liszt Academy's evening programme leaflet, which is printed on environmentally friendly paper, garnered a number of communication and design awards during the course of last year. Unique in international concert life, with their intimate form, world–class book illustrations and mini essays that initiate the audience into the mysteries of live music, they won favour with yet more competition juries. In November 2014 the Liszt Academy's evening programme leaflet was placed on the shortlist as the favourite at the Kreatív Craft Awards, run by the Kreatív journal. In the competition, which recognises the finest solutions in the advertising and communications world, this series of publications beat over seventy other competitors, and this time it was the cover illustrations by Lehel Kovács, which were commissioned by the communications department of the Liszt Academy, that were awarded a prize. The freelance illustrator had this to say about his characteristic style: “They are striking, colourful and upbeat, and I love combining hand drawn lines with digitally mixed colours.” His illustrations have appeared in leading daily and weekly publications and magazines, from The New York Times to Die Welt and Rolling Stone magazine. In the summer, Communications Arts magazine, the world's leading publication for visual communication, held its 55th design competition. The Liszt Academy's logo, designed by graphic artist Anna Farkas, was voted one of the very best. As we briefly reported in the last edition of our magazine, the Liszt Academy's profile also won a Red Dot Design Award, which recognises the design achievements of the most important world brands. The image, including the programme magazine, programme leaflets, name cards as well as the family of logos, created by a team led by Communications Director Imre Szabó Stein, in collaboration with the Allison Group, won the favour of the twenty-four–strong international jury at the Red Dot competition, competing with over seven thousand other entries. The value of the prize is augmented because in the most prestigious category of corporate identity, the Liszt Academy was the only musical institution in the world to receive such plaudits from the international design elite. “We built a visual strategy on the arc of tension between patina and progress,” says Imre Szabó Stein, who personally accepted the award in Berlin on October 24th 2014, exactly one year after the Liszt Academy reopened its doors.

IMRE SZABÓ STEIN AND ANNA FARKAS AT THE RED DOT AWARD CEREMONY 127

NOT IN THE SEASON TICKETS CONCERT SELECTION JAZZ IT!

09 FEBRUARY 19.00 / SOLTI HALL THE IMPOSSIBLE GENTLEMEN

8 MARCH 19.30 / GRAND HALL THE FIRST 50 YEARS GALA CONCERT OF THE JAZZ FACULTY

19 MARCH 19.00 / SOLTI HALL VIJAY IYER TRIO

14 APRIL 19.00 / SOLTI HALL Krisztián Oláh – Two formations

28 MAY 19.00 / SOLTI HALL ANAT COHEN QUARTET

Acoustic, Authentic

19 FEBRUARY 19.30 / GRAND HALL ISTVÁN PÁL ‘SZALONNA’ & HIS BAND

4 MARCH 19.00 / SOLTI HALL ÚJ STÍLUS

29 APRIL 19.00 / SOLTI HALL Mária Petrás and the Szigony Ensemble

9 MAY 19.30 / GRAND HALL DANCE HOUSE DAY

6 JUNE 19.00 / SOLTI HALL TÜKRÖS 30

Opera Exam Festival

Voice, So Close

BLACK AND WHITE COLOURS

19 JANUARY 19.00 / SOLTI HALL Opera Exam Festival – SITCOM

22 JANUARY 19.00 / SOLTI HALL OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL – DON GIOVANNI

23 JANUARY 19.00 / SOLTI HALL OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL – SITCOM

25 JANUARY 19.00 / SOLTI HALL Opera Exam Festival THE ANGEL OF THE ODD

7 MARCH 17.00 / GRAND HALL HANDEL IN TRIPLICATE

12 MARCH 19.30 / GRAND HALL CSABA SOMOS DLA DOCTORAL CONCERT

22 MARCH 19.30 / GRAND HALL JUDIT RAJK AND THE SAINT EPHRAIM MALE CHOIR

4 MAY 19.00 / GRAND HALL ARIA EXAM

11 MARCH 19.30 / GRAND HALL GERGELY BOGANYI AT THE LISZT ACADEMY

12 OCTOBER 19.30 / GRAND HALL KATIA AND MARIELLE LABEQUE piano recital

28 NOVEMBER 19.30 / GRAND HALL Mariann Marczi piano recital

Chamber Music Workshop

3 MARCH 19.00 / Old Academy of Music CONTRASTS - CONCERT SERIES OF LISZT ACADEMY'S CHAMBER WORKSHOP

5 MAY 19.00 / Old Academy of Music CONTRASTS - CONCERT SERIES OF LISZT ACADEMY'S CHAMBER WORKSHOP

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22 APRIL 19.00 / Old Academy of Music CONTRASTS - CONCERT SERIES OF LISZT ACADEMY'S CHAMBER WORKSHOP

MUSIC, SO CLOSE SEASON TICKETS 2015 ORCHESTRA IN THE CENTRE

Music comes alive at Ferenc Liszt Square every night with the collaboration of world stars, supreme domestic artists and young talents, and we offer this unparalleled experience in our subscription series, which are grouped thematically. The Liszt Academy reopened over a year ago, and we are now announcing our second set of subscription series for our own concerts, which augment the unparalleled success of the autumn selection. We have compiled the 2015 subscription series (with two exceptions relating to the academic year) from not just to the end of the concert season but the entire calendar year, partly as a continuation of the much-loved series of the last season and also in a new selection. The new subscription series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre offers a substantial 20% discount compared to the prices of individual tickets and can be purchased any time before the first concert of a given series. Further, for subscriptions purchased in 2014 we offer an additional 20% special Christmas discount. Our ‘À La Carte’ series, which will be available from January 1st, offers a 10% discount for purchases of tickets for three different performances, 15% for four concerts, and 20% for five concerts. Similarly the ‘Cello Year’ subscription operates in this fashion: it features concerts by famous cello stars and aspiring young cellists. This discount also applies to all concerts organised by the Liszt Academy Concert Centre that fall outside the subscription series, and is valid until June 30th 2015. For current availability of tickets, check zeneakedemia.hu/jegykinalat, or the ticket office at the Ferenc Liszt Academy. The ‘À la carte’ series can only be purchased at the ticket office.

2015.01.31. 2015.03.21. 2015.04.28. 2015.05.09.

DETAILS, SUBSCRIPTION PRICES: zeneakademia.hu/berletek

2015.03.01. 2015.03.21. 2015.04.12. 2015.05.17.

2015.02.24. 2015.03.18. 2015.05.07. 2015.10.19. 2015.11.08. 2015.12.09.

19.30 19.30 19.30 19.30 19.30 19.30

VILDE FRANG & AMSTERDAM SINFONIETTA GÁBOR TAKÁCS-NAGY & MANCHESTER CAMERATA DÉNES VÁRJON & CONCERTO BUDAPEST MISCHA MAISKY & HUNGARIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA CHARLES DUTOIT & VIENNA SYMPHONY DENIS MATSUEV & CHAMBER ORCHESTRA VIENNA–BERLIN

PURE BAROQUE

2015.02.13. 2015.04.01. 2015.05.19. 2015.09.29. 2015.10.21. 2015.11.26.

19.00 19.30 19.30 19.30 19.00 19.30

BALÁZS MÁTÉ & AURA MUSICALE GYÖRGY VASHEGYI, PURCELL CHOIR, ORFEO ORCHESTRA JORDI SAVALL & LE CONCERT DES NATIONS BALTHASAR-NEUMANN CHOIR & ENSEMBLE BORBÁLA DOBOZY BACH ORCHESTRAL RECITAL RACHEL PODGER AND THE ORCHESTRA OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

CHAMBER MUSIC FOR GRAND HALL

2015.03.27. 2015.05.31. 2015.09.11. 2015.12.04. 2015.12.15.

19.30 19.30 19.30 19.30 19.30

ANDRÁS KELLER, CSABA KLENYÁN, DÉNES VÁRJON ISTVÁN VÁRDAI AND PÉTER FRANKL VILDE FRANG, NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT & KELEMEN QUARTET VÁRDAI, KRILOV, TOMTER, GOERNER BARNABÁS KELEMEN AND JOSÉ GALLARDO

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE 2015.05.15. 2015.05.16. 2015.05.16. 2015.05.31. 2015.11.05. 2015.11.07.

19.00 11.00 19.00 19.30 19.30 19.30

KRISTÓF BARÁTI AND KLÁRA WÜRTZ ISTVÁN VÁRDAI AND PÉTER FRANKL MIKLÓS PERÉNYI

FOUR BY FOUR

2015.02.07. 2015.03.05. 2015.09.11. 2015.10.10.

19.00 19.00 19.30 19.00

BRODSKY QUARTET ZEHETMAIR QUARTET KELEMEN KVARTETT, VILDE FRANG AND NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT BELCEA QUARTET AND TILL FELLNER

MASTERS OF THE ORCHESTRA

2015.04.15. 2015.05.18. 2015.10.22. 2015.11.15.

19.30 19.30 19.30 19.30

GYÖRGY VASHEGYI & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA KOBAYASHI KEN-ICHIRO & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA PINCHAS STEINBERG & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA ZOLTÁN KOCSIS ÉS & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA

SONG RECITALS AT THE LISZT ACADEMY

2015.02.27. 2015.05.24. 2014.09.24. 2015.11.07.

19.00 19.30 19.00 19.00

KATALIN HALMAI AND GÁBOR ALSZÁSZY MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ AND MITSUKO UCHIDA TETIANA ZHURAVEL AND NATALIA KOROLKO SZILVIA VÖRÖS AND KÁROLY MOCSÁRI

TALENT OBLIGE 19.00 19.00 19.00 19.00

MIHÁLY DEMENIV ACCORDION RECITAL GERGELY DEVICH CHAMBER RECITAL MUSICIENS LIBRES NYÁRI QUARTET

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY 11.00 11.00 11.00 11.00

THE SUPERFLUOUS OPERA DIRECTOR THE SUPERFLUOUS CONDUCTOR THE SUPERFLUOUS SHEET MUSIC THE SUPERFLUOUS VIOLA

129

LISZT ACADEMY GRAND HALL

KATIA & MARIELLE LABÈQUE TWO PIANOS RECITAL 12.10.2015.

LISZT ACADEMY GRAND HALL

BRAD MEHLDAU TRIO 25.11.2015.

Kocsis Zoltรกn (FOTร : MARJAI JUDIT)

CONCERT CHRONOLOGY Concerts organized by Liszt Academy Concert Centre Hosted concert Classical Jazz Opera Folk Junior SATURDAY 3 JANUARY, 16.00

SUNDAY 25 JANUARY, 11.00

BÉLA SZAKCSI LAKATOS & GUESTS FRANCISCAN CHARITY RECITAL FOR AUTISMT

UNDERSTANDABLE MUSIC DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK ERNŐ DOHNÁNYI

page 10 SATURDAY 17 JANUARY, 19.30

VARVARA NEPOMNYASHCHAYA & CONCERTO BUDAPEST page 11

SUNDAY 18 JANUARY, 19.30

W. A. MOZART: THE MAGIC FLUTE

VARVARA NEPOMNYASHCHAYA & CONCERTO BUDAPEST

page 6

page 11

SATURDAY 3 JANUARY, 19.30

MONDAY 19 JANUARY, 19.00

page 18 TUESDAY 27 JANUARY, 19.30

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST page 18

WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY, 19.30

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO BALÁZS FÜLEI PIANO RECITAL page 18

THURSDAY 29 JANUARY, 19.30

MISKOLC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

page 20

FÉLIX LAJKÓ NEW YEAR’S CONCERT

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL SITCOM

page 6

page 11

FRIDAY 30 JANUARY, 19.00

FRIDAY 9 JANUARY, 19.00

TUESDAY 20 JANUARY, 19.30

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CARNIVAL CONCERT

MVM CONCERTS JÁNOS BALÁZS ORCHESTRAL PIANO RECITAL

SATURDAY 31 JANUARY, 10.30; 15.00

FERENC RADOS & MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA page 7

SATURDAY 10 JANUARY, 19.00

TRANSPARENT SOUND NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT

page 14

THURSDAY 22 JANUARY, 19.00

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL DON GIOVANNI

page 7

page 14

SUNDAY 11 JANUARY, 19.00

FRIDAY 23 JANUARY, 19.00

ON THE SPOT – NEW MUSIC

page 8

MONDAY 12 JANUARY, 19.30

BEYOND MUSIC... TAMÁS VÁSÁRY MUSICAL CONVERSATIONS

page 20

STORY-TELLING MUSIC FOREST MURMURS page 20 SATURDAY 31 JANUARY, 19.00

TALENT OBLIGE MIHÁLY DEMENIV page 22

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL SITCOM

TUESDAY 3 FEBRUARY, 19.30

FRIDAY 23 JANUARY, 19.30

BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA PERÉNYI – SCHUMANN

page 14

BALÁZS FÜLEI & MR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

page 22

page 8

page 16

SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY, 19.00

TUESDAY 13 JANUARY, 19.30

SATURDAY 24 JANUARY, 19.30

FOUR BY FOUR BRODSKY QUARTET

DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA BRUCKNER – BEAUTY AND FAITH

page 16

page 8 THURSDAY 15 JANUARY, 19.30

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO YULIANNA AVDEEVA PIANO RECITAL 10 page

132

FRIDAY 16 JANUARY, 20.00

DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK

SUNDAY 23 JANUARY, 19.00

OPERA EXAM FESTIVAL THE ANGEL OF THE ODD page 16

page 24

MONDAY 9 FEBRUARY, 19.00

JAZZ IT! THE IMPOSSIBLE GENTLEMEN page 24

TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY, 19.30

SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY, 15.30

SUNDAY 1 MARCH, 11.00

MVM CONCERTS - THE PIANO RAMIN BAHRAMI PIANO RECITAL

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST

WEDNESDAY 11 FEBRUARY, 19.30

SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY, 19.30

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS OPERA DIRECTOR FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS

NING FENG & FRANZ LISZT CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

CONCERTO BUDAPEST & UMZE CHAMBER ENSEMBLE

SUNDAY 1 MARCH, 11.00

FRIDAY 13 FEBRUARY, 19.00

MONDAY 23 FEBRUARY, 19.30

UNDERSTANDABLE MUSIC DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK MIHÁLY SZÉKELY

PURE BAROQUE HARMONIA CAELESTIS BALÁZS MÁTÉ AND AURA MUSICALE

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO FAZIL SAY PIANO RECITAL

page 28

page 30 SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY, 19.30

ÁDÁM GYÖRGY PIANO RECITAL

page 30

SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY, 19.00

IN MEDIAS BRASS QUINTET

page 31

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY, 19.30

ON THE SPOT THE STRINGS DEPARTMENT page 31 HETFŐ 16 FEBRUARY, 19.00

SÁNDOR BALASSA COMPOSER’S RECITAL page 31

THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY, 19.30

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC ISTVÁN PÁL ‘SZALONNA’ & HIS BAND “ON THE ROAD”

page 36

page 44

page 45

page 36

SUNDAY 1 MARCH, 18.00

TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY, 19.30

20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ST STEPHEN GRAMMAR SCHOOL JUBILEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

ORCHESTRA IN THE CENTRE VILDE FRANG & AMSTERDAM SINFONIETTA

page 45

page 38

TUESDAY 3 MARCH, 19.30

WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY, 19.30

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC

page 45

page 38

WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH, 19.00

THURSDAY 26 FEBRUARY, 19.30

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC ÚJ STÍLUS

ENDRE HEGEDŰS ORCHESTRAL PIANO RECITAL

page 46

page 38

WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH, 19.30

FRIDAY 27 FEBRUARY, 19.00

BORIS BEREZOVSKY & FRANZ LISZT CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

SONG RECITALS AT THE LISZT ACADEMY KATALIN HALMAI & GÁBOR ALSZÁSZY SONG RECITAL NATURE AND LOVE page 42

page 46

THURSDAY 5 MARCH, 19.00

FOUR BY FOUR ZEHETMAIR QUARTET page 46

page 32

FRIDAY 27 FEBRUARY, 21.00

FRIDAY 6 MARCH, 19.30

FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY, 19.30

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CARNIVAL CONCERT

BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA BERLIOZ – MAGIC AND PASSION

MR MUSIC ENSEMBLES

page 32

FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY, 21.00

FRENCH LATE NIGHT

page 32

page 42 SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY, 19.30

MIKLÓS PERÉNYI & BUDAPEST STRINGS page 44

page 48 FRIDAY 6 MARCH, 21.00

FRENCH LATE NIGHT

page 48

SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY, 21.00

FRENCH LATE NIGHT

page 32

133

SATURDAY 7 MARCH, 17.00

VOICE, SO CLOSE HÄNDEL IN TRIPLICATE CONCERT AND CONVERSATION WITH GYÖRGY VASHEGYI page 48 SATURDAY 7 MARCH, 21.00

FRENCH LATE NIGHT

WEDNESDAY 18 MARCH, 19.30

SATURDAY 28 MARCH, 19.30

ORCHESTRA IN THE CENTRE GÁBOR TAKÁCS-NAGY & MANCHESTER CAMERATA

ON THE SPOT CHAMBER MUSIC WORKSHOP

page 58

THURSDAY 19 MARCH, 19.00

JAZZ IT! VIJAY IYER TRIO (USA)

page 48

page 58

SUNDAY 8 MARCH, 19.30

SATURDAY 21 MARCH, 11.00

JAZZ IT! THE FIRST 50 YEARS GALA CONCERT OF THE JAZZ FACULTY page 50 TUESDAY 10 MARCH, 19.30

MR MUSIC ENSEMBLES

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS CONDUCTOR FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS page 62 SATURDAY 21 MARCH, 19.00

TALENT OBLIGE GERGELY DEVICH

page 50

page 62

WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH, 19.30

SUNDAY 22 MARCH, 19.00

BLACK AND WHITE COLOURS GERGELY BOGÁNYI AT THE LISZT ACADEMY page 50

THURSDAY 12 MARCH, 19.30

VOICE, SO CLOSE CSABA SOMOS DLA DOCTORAL CONCERT

VOICE, SO CLOSE JUDIT RAJK AND THE SAINT EPHRAIM MALE CHOIR “BYZANTIUM, OUR CONTEMPORARY” page 63 TUESDAY 24 MARCH, 19.30

MISKOLC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA HUNGARY AND THE WORLD

WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL, 19.30

PURE BAROQUE ST JOHN PASSION page 68

THURSDAY 2 APRIL, 19.30

BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA KOCSIS – WAR AND PEACE page 70 FRIDAY 3 APRIL, 19.00

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FRENCH RECITAL page 70 THURSDAY 9 APRIL, 19.30

MVM CONCERTS – THE PIANO EVGENI KOROLIOV PIANO RECITAL page 74

SATURDAY 11 APRIL, 15.30

ZUGLÓ PHILHARMONICS BUDAPEST page 74

SATURDAY 11 APRIL, 19.45

page 54

page 63

FRIDAY 13 MARCH, 19.00

WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH, 19.30

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA BAROQUE RECITAL

CONCERTO BUDAPEST & UMZE CHAMBER ENSEMBLE PIERRE BOULEZ 90

page 74

page 54

SATURDAY 14 MARCH, 19.30

page 64

SUNDAY 12 APRIL, 11.00

DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK

THURSDAY 26 MARCH, 19.30

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS SHEET MUSIC FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

page 54

60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MR CHILDREN’S CHOIR

TUESDAY 17 MARCH, 19.30

page 64

BEYOND MUSIC... TAMÁS VÁSÁRY MUSICAL CONVERSATIONS

FRIDAY 27 MARCH, 19.30

page 58

CHAMBER MUSIC FOR GRAND HALL ANDRÁS KELLER, CSABA KLENYÁN, DÉNES VÁRJON HOMMAGE À BARTÓK page 68

134

page 68

page 75 SUNDAY 12 APRIL, 11.00

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL DEZSŐ RÁNKI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST MOZART’S PIANO CONCERTOS 1 page 75

SUNDAY 12 APRIL, 15.30

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA BAROQUE RECITAL page 76 SUNDAY 12 APRIL, 19.30

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL DEZSŐ RÁNKI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST MOZART’S PIANO CONCERTOS 2 page 76 TUESDAY 14 APRIL, 19.00

JAZZ IT! KRISZTIÁN OLÁH TWO FORMATIONS page 77

WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL, 19.30

MASTERS OF THE ORCHESTRA GYÖRGY VASHEGYI & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA page 77

THURSDAY 16 APRIL, 18.00

WORLD VOICE DAY 2015

page 80

FRIDAY 17 APRIL, 19.00

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL PIIA KOMSI & PÉTER NAGY SONG RECITAL page 80

SATURDAY 18 APRIL, 19.30

FRIDAY 24 APRIL, 19.30

MONDAY 4 MAY, 19.00

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VOICE, SO CLOSE ARIA EXAMINATION

page 84

page 91

SATURDAY 25 APRIL, 19.30

TUESDAY 5 MAY, 19.30

GERGELY BOGÁNYI, GÁBOR BOLDOCZKI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST page 84

SUNDAY 26 APRIL, 19.30

PURCELL CHOIR 25

KEN-ICHIRO KOBAYASHI & MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA page 92

SATURDAY 7 MAY, 19.30

DÉNES VÁRJON & CONCERTO BUDAPEST

page 86

page 92

TUESDAY 28 APRIL, 19.45

SATURDAY 9 MAY, 19.00

20TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT OF THE PANNONIA SACRA CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

page 86

TUESDAY 28 APRIL, 19.00

TALENT OBLIGE MUSICIENS LIBRES page 88

WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL, 19.00

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC MÁRIA PETRÁS & SZIGONY ENSEMBLE page 88

THURSDAY 30 APRIL, 19.00

ON THE SPOT WOODWIND INSTRUMENTS page 90

TALENT OBLIGE NYÁRI QUARTET page 94

SATURDAY 9 MAY, 19.30

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC DANCE HOUSE DAY page 94

SUNDAY 10 MAY, 10.30

STORY-TELLING MUSIC ENTERTAINING OR SERIOUS? page 96 WEDNESDAY 13 MAY, 19.30

FRANZ LISZT CHAMBER ORCHESTRA page 96

FRIDAY 15 MAY, 19.30

page 80

SATURDAY 2 MAY, 19.30

SUNDAY 19 APRIL, 19.30

DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE KRISTÓF BARÁTI & KLÁRA WÜRTZ BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO 1

page 90

page 96

page 83

SUNDAY 3 MAY, 11.00

FRIDAY 15 MAY, 19.00

THURSDAY 23 APRIL, 19.30

UNDERSTANDABLE MUSIC DOHNÁNYI ORCHESTRA BUDAFOK FERENC FRICSAY

page 100

LEVENTE SZÖRÉNYI 70

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL SNÉTBERGER-JORMIN-BARON TRIO

BUDAPEST SPRING FESTIVAL HAGEN QUARTET page 83

page 91 SUNDAY 3 MAY, 19.30

MVM CONCERTS FÉLIX LAJKÓ & JÁNOS BALÁZS page 91

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

SATURDAY 16 MAY, 11.00

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE KRISTÓF BARÁTI & KLÁRA WÜRTZ BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO 2 page 100 135

SATURDAY 23 MAY, 16.00

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE KRISTÓF BARÁTI & KLÁRA WÜRTZ BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO 3

MR CHILDREN’S CHOIR END-OF-SEASON CONCERT

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA

page 112

page 118

SUNDAY 24 MAY, 10.00

FRIDAY 19 JUNE, 19.00

page 100 SATURDAY 16 MAY, 19.30

KHATIA BUNIATISHVILI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST page 102

SONG RECITALS AT THE LISZT ACADEMY MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ & MITSUKO UCHIDA page 114

SUNDAY 17 MAY, 11.00

THURSDAY 28 MAY, 19.00

LISZT KIDZ ACADEMY THE SUPERFLUOUS VIOLA FOR 10–15-YEAR-OLDS

JAZZ IT! ANAT COHEN QUARTET

page 102 SUNDAY 17 MAY, 19.30

KHATIA BUNIATISHVILI & CONCERTO BUDAPEST page 102

MONDAY 18 MAY, 10.00

MASTERS OF THE ORCHESTRA KEN-ICHIRO KOBAYASHI & LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

page 114

SUNDAY 31 MAY, 10.00–17.00

BIG LISZT KIDZ DAY

page 117

SUNDAY 31 MAY, 19.30

COMPLETE WORKS LIVE ISTVÁN VÁRDAI & PÉTER FRANKL BEETHOVEN’S COMPLETE SONATAS FOR CELLO AND PIANO page 117

page 106

SATURDAY 6 JUNE, 19.00

TUESDAY 19 MAY, 19.30

ACOUSTIC, AUTHENTIC TÜKRÖS 30

PURE BAROQUE JORDI SAVALL & LE CONCERT DES NATIONS

THURSDAY 11 JUNE, 19.45

page 106

WEDNESDAY 20 MAY, 19.30

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC page 112

FRIDAY 22 MAY, 19.30

BEHOLD THE MAN DANUBIA ORCHESTRA ÓBUDA BARTÓK – HOMELAND page 112

page 118

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA page 118

FRIDAY 12 JUNE, 19.45

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA page 118

SATURDAY 13 JUNE, 15.30

BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA page 118

136

SUNDAY 14 JUNE, 15.30

SATURDAY 16 MAY, 19.00

MÁV SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

page 120

TUESDAY 30 JUNE, 19.00

OPERA EXAM

page 120

SUPPORTER OF LISZT ACADEMY:

STRATEGIC MEDIA PARTNERS:

STRATEGIC PARTNERS IN 2014:

PARTNERS OF THE UNIVERSITY:

CO-PRODUCTION PARTNER:

TICKET MAP GRAND HALL

CHOIR LEFT 10 – 19

RIGHT 19 – 10

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

V IV III II I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

M1 M2 M3

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

8 7 6 5 4 3 2

1 M3 M2 M1

RIGHT 12 – 1

LEFT 1 – 12

7 6

3 2 1

4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 6 5 4 3 2 1 6

LEFT 9– 1

138

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1

2 3 4 5 6 6 5 4 3 2

I II III IV V VI

CENTRE-LEFT CENTRE-RIGHT 1–7 1– 7

CENTRE BALCONY

6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 5 4 3 2 1

I II III IV V VI

1 2 3 4

5 5

9 8

8 9

STALLS

6 5 7 1 2 3 4 6 5 1 2 3 4 6 5 1 2 3 4

RIGHT 1–9

12 – 1

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

BALCONY RIGHT

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

24 – 13

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVI XVIII

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

ONSTAGE SEATS: 80 SEATS

24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

STAGE

V VI III II I

BALCONY LEFT

19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

1 – 12

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

13 – 24

LEGEND Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Category 4 Reserved for services

TICKET MAP SOLTI HALL CONTACT, VISITOR INFORMATION

ALISZT FERENC ACADEMY OF MUSIC 1061 Budapest, Liszt Ferenc tér 8 ZENEAKADÉMIA central phone number: (1) 462-4600 KONCERTKÖZPONT Customers can also address their inquiries SAJÁT SZERVEZÉSÉBEN.

LEGEND Category 1 Category 2 Reserved for services

to kozonsegkapcsolat@zeneakademia.hu.

TICKETING The ticket office of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre operates adjacent to the main entrance of the restored Liszt Academy at Liszt Ferenc tér 8. Ticket office general opening times: 10 am – 6 pm Monday-Sunday. Besides these general opening times the ticket office will also be open during concerts, from the hour preceding the start of the performance until the end of the first interval.

STAGE A

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

III

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

III

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

VII

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

VII

VIII 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

VIII

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

XII

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

XII

XIII 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

XIII

1 2 3 3 2 1

XIV

Ticket office contact details: Tel.: (1) 321-0690 E-mail: jegy@zeneakademia.hu Staff of the ticket office will be pleased to help if you have any questions concerning Liszt Academy Concert Centre tickets. Further information on ticket purchases is available at the website of the Liszt Academy.

LISZT ACADEMY OPENING HOURS, GUIDED TOURS The main building of the Liszt Academy can be visited via guided tours lasting approx. 50 minutes. Guides speaking Hungarian, English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish or Japanese are provided by the Liszt Academy. Participants can enter the ground floor and first floor foyers, the Grand Hall and the Solti Hall. Tour dates and further information at zeneakademia.hu/en/guided-tours; registration for groups at turizmus@zeneakademia.hu. Tickets: Guided tour in Hungarian: HUF 1 500 Student / Concessions: HUF 750 Guided tour in a foreign language: HUF 2 900 Student / Concessions: HUF 1450

XIV M3 M2 M1

M1 M2 M3 LEFT 1–7

RIGHT 7–1

STALLS

14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In order to ensure undisturbed teaching conditions, the building is closed to the general public during the day and opens 1 hour prior to the start of 1.concerts. kategória

14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2. kategória

14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

8 7 6 5 4 3

2 1

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

8 7 6 5 4 3 LEFT 1–7

RIGHT 8–1

BALCONY

JELMAGYARÁZAT

ACCESS

szolgálati hely

When visiting the building, guests should use the main entrance on Liszt Ferenc Square. The entrance for disabled guests and their companions can be accessed from Király Street. From here it is possible to gain mobility access by lift to the concert halls. 139

IMPRESSUM

AUTHORS OF THE CONCERT MAGAZINE:

PUBLISHER: Dr. Andrea Vigh, President of the Liszt Academy

EDITOR IN CHIEF: Imre Szabó Stein

MANAGING EDITOR: Gergely Fazekas

PUBLISHING MANAGER: Ágnes Varga

Anna Belinszky – student at Liszt Academy's Musicology and Music Theory Department Mátyás Bolya – Hungarian zither and cobza player, professor at the Liszt Academy Gergely Fazekas – musicologist, senior lecturer of the Liszt Academy Miklós Fáy – music critic, journalist Balázs Fülei – Junior Prima Prize–winner pianist, assistant lecturer of the Liszt Academy János Gonda – Széchenyi and Liszt Prize–winner pianist, composer, jazzhistorian, professor at the Liszt Academy Norman Lebrecht – English music critic, columnist Péter Lorenz– member of staff of the Communications Directorate Balázs Máté – cellist, artistic director of early music ensemble Arua Musicale Dániel Mona – student at Liszt Academy's Musicology and Music Theory Department Tamás Vajna – cultural journalist Dániel Végh – member of staff of the Communications Directorate Vijay Iyer – pianist, composer, professor at Harvard University Concert reviews by Mátyás Bolya, Anna Belinszky, Gergely Fazekas, Szabolcs Molnár and Tamás Várkonyi.

LAYOUT:

TRANSLATORS:

Allison Advertising Kft. Gergő Cuba

James Stewart, Nicholas Jenkins

ENGLISH PROOFREADING: PRINT PRODUCTION: High Voltage Kft.

Andrew Symons

PHOTOS AND ARTWORKS: PRINTING: Keskeny és Társai 2001 Kft.

Viola Fátyol, Gábor Gerhes, Adél Koleszár, Péter Korniss, Judit Marjai, Felix Mendelsshon-Bartholdy, Dezső Szabó, Lajos Vajda, Joel-Peter Witkin

Published by the Communications Directorate With particular thanks to art historian, curator Kata Oltai of the Liszt Academy in 2000 copies.

CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHY AND ARTISTS’ PORTRAITS: The organizer retains the right to modify programmes.

FINALIZED: 17 November 2014 140

Richard Avedon, Sándor Benkő, Marco Borggreve, Anikó Budaházi, István Fazekas, Andrea Felvégi, Larry Fink, Esther Haase, Harald Hoffmann, David Ignaszewski, Zsófia Imrik, Jimmy Katz, Priska Ketterer, Péter Kollányi, Zoltán Máthé, Balázs Mohai, László Mudra, David Port, Ugo Dalla Porta, Ákos Stiller, Zoltán Tuba